Brand new OR nurses UNITE!!!

Don't give up it is a great field.

The biggest thing we tell our new guys are to let the bad times roll off and don't let them see you cry.

We have six new RN's and 4 new scrub techs right now.

There are a lot of frustrations and a lot of rewards.

Have fun!

I'm a little early but thought I would jump in! I graduate in May 2002 and am very interested in OR, I have applied for a perioperative internship at a large teaching hospital in St. Louis. I am excited and also nervous as I have heard stories of OR nurses and their treatment of new nurses, I am hoping not all nurses in the OR are like this, as I truly find OR a fascinating place!

Best wishes to you all
Channa

A friend of mine (trying to get her to come in and post) works in the OR and has been there since October. She has great stories to tell, but my all-time fave was when she scrubbed for a LAVH and while holding retractors for the Doc to extract the uterus, she watched as the Doc pulled harder and harder, she supected she needed to back up just a bit. Too late! She was smacked in the face with a Uterus!!!! LOL LOL LOL!! Good thing for masks! Funny thing was, it was her first time assisting as second scrub. She just kind of laughed it off when it happened, and I think the Docs and Nurses all gained some respect for her as a result.

A nurse that attended the same OR course I did started at the same hospital I did about 4 months ago. We are both pretty green but so far I have avoided any really major mistakes. Anyway a couple of weeks ago she prepped the wrong leg for surgery, and it wasn't discovered until almost too late. Not really a funny story, more of a cautionary tale. Be careful in the ortho room! Most orthopods are former college football players and may have taken a couple of head shots!

This is for armyrn, let your friend know it is acceptable to ask the patient to mark the extremity with the surgeon's initials. This will avoid any future problems. Believe me there have been reports of this happening, I do remember many years ago when I started someone did prep and the surgeon did operate on the wrong scheduled knee. The patient was diagnosed with both knees needing totals but the right was scheduled and the left was done. By the way the family sued and won! Just take your time and don't let anyone push you to fast or too hard. Anesthesia, surgeons, fellow nurses or your nurse mgr will try to get you to move faster, this is when mistakes can happen. Remember no one is going to look out for you license but yourself. Good luck, Mike

The correct leg was marked with "yes" and the initials of the surgeon. Normally the orthopods mark the operative limb "yes" and the nonoperative "no". The nonoperative leg did not get marked in that case. Our policy is to mark both limbs and now I get the wonderful job of doing a 6-month CQI audit on surgical site marking, since I'm in charge of running those. Our surgeons are normally great about marking sites though. Thanks for the feedback.

I just graduated last may. I have been working in OR for almost 6 months now and love it. I had to learn how to scrub first, just general cases. I hate scrubbing in on cases but will do it when we become short staffed on scrub tech's. Our OR needs some more scrub techs bad. I am learning how to circulate and do recovery now. I have already learned holding room. Our OR is in charge of Outpatient floor as well so I have learned outpatient already. Gaining and learning alot at one time, it get frustrating at times but I wouldn't do anything else.