Organ transplant orientation

[midwestRN01]

What is the organ (specifically Liver/Kidney) transplant orientation like at your facility? We can't seem to find a fair way to orient at my hospital. The way we currently do it is to have people sign up on an "orientation calender." If there is a liver transplant scheduled for that day, then you are called in and assigned to that surgery. Currently, there is no one holding each individual accountable, so someone who has been working in the OR for 10+ years hasn't learned the procedure where as new hires- within 1-2 years experience are being required to learn. What is the process at your hospital? WHat has worked and what hasn't?

[lockheart678]

I used to do transplants and we never really had an orientation for kidneys. It was just the regular nursing orientation and they tried to get us in on transplants during our urology rotation. For livers, we had a buddy call system until the staff members could see one or two. If they never did get to see one, we just tried to pair the new people with experienced staff. We would also put the new people in on the liver resections during the day and that was the biggest help in training people for transplants because the transplant surgeon did the two cases very similarly. We had a big problem with some people going months without ever seeing a transplant, while others were always on call when they came and they did a ton of them.

[JenJen82084]

We have a liver transplant team consisting of six nurses and techs who take rotating call. Our facility currently expects all staff to be able to do kidney/panc transplants and get oriented during their initial orientation period. Currently our surgeons are campaigning for a kidney/panc call team since they feel that not all staff is competent in these procedures. We'll see where that goes...