PACU/OR nurse issues

[Trishjlb]

Hi, I am a PACU nurse and work primarily evening and weekends. During the weekdays all pre op patients go to the preop dept to get ready for surgery. On off hours pts come to PACU since that dept is closed. We have been doing more and more surgeries on off hours and it has become a big issue between the OR and PACU as to which dept is responsible for preoping the pts. I'm wondering how this is handled in other hospitals??? Thank you!

[sukiathome]

Our OR nurses have lost all of their assessment, IV and patient management skills. The ones I work work have no desire to obtain a patient history. They don't even want to touch the patient. They are used to the anesthesiologist managing the patient. Read a monitor? Are you kidding? They put the leads any old way on the patient. They have no concept of what other areas in the hospital do. then again, I have no desire to work in the OR. I enjoy patient care, patient management. I'm ok with it. Let them do what they like to do. I've seen some OR nurses not question a 84 year old going right to the OR without blood work or an EKG on them. They don't get it.

[lockheart678]

I'm an OR nurse and where I come from, if there's an after hours patient, they are either admitted directly to the floor or come from the ER, and whichever it happens to be, that's the department that takes care of the pre-op. It's pretty common though that the patients who came from the floor didn't get their blood drawn like it was supposed to be, and in that case, either the OR nurse does it or we get anesthesia to do it if the patient is a hard stick. The only thing we ever get pacu nurses to do is an EKG if it's needed because OR nurses aren't certified to do them at my facility. We always have pacu nurses in house though so nobody would ever get called in for it.