Don't Lose Your Clinical Skills?

[KristinWW]

I am a student graduating next year and I have always wanted to go into OR nursing. However, every time I tell my wish to my tele and ICU nursing friends, their response is to never lose my clinical skills. How do I accomplish this if I am fortunate enough to be hired directly into a new OR training program?

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

I think whatever specialty you go in to you are going to "lose" some skills but you will become incredibly proficient at others. It really just depends on the focus of your speciality......

I totally agree with the above statement.

[TeenyBabyRN]

Yes, but remember also that many hospitals do not have pre-op open off- shift, such as evenings,nights, and weekends. Also, some hospitals only have one RN on call for PACU with OR as the back-up.

No pre-op on call? Wow! Our pre-op nurses would love that! We keep a pre-op RN and a PACU RN on-call, so the pre-op nurse would be the back-up for PACU, if needed.

[suzanne4, RN]

Any of the facilities that I have worked in, and that has been Arizona as well as Michigan, did not have a pre-op person on call. There was never pre-op at night, or on Sundays. A couple of facilities had one pre-op person on Saturday days only because of scheduled cases. At some smaller facilities, I have been the pre-op nurse, OR nurse, as well as PACU person. But I may be different in that I also have years of experience in PACU and all of the different ICUS. So I am not afraid to jump right in. Also depends on your comfort level. I guess it just depends on what you are used to and where you are working. I am also used to hooking up all of the monitors and grabbing the first set of vitals on the ICU patients that go to PACU while the nurse in there is getting report.

Just for me, my skills are definitely not wasted, they only get better! :balloons: