A Day in the life of an OR nurse...

[CuttingEdgeRN]

Assignment on the board: Dr. "hard to please, very hostile cardiac surgeon": Right femoral endarterectomy.

Permit says: Right femoral endarterectomy, possible bilateral.

Room is set up, I turn bed so that Xray of femerals are possible, "just in case".

3 hours later, after much running, fetching, and getting yelled at, I write my procedure on my records:

1. Arteriogram, with illiac stent deployment

2. Left fem pop A/K

3. Right fem pop A/K

4. Fem to Fem bypass graft.

Why oh why can't surgeons book cases so that we can be ready?? Or even give us a HINT before we put the patient on the table, instead of expecting us to read their minds. The worst part is the poor student nurse shadowing me to watch her very first surgical procedure. Bet she is just dying to be an OR nurse after graduatoion now, huh!

I would vent about this to my dh but he just wouldn't understand.

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Why oh why can't surgeons book cases so that we can be ready??

One of the problems that we've had is when the surgeons' secretaries call our posting office, they would be verry generic with the case, instead of going into detail.

To avoid C.F. (cluster____) kinds of cases, i ask my surgeons to fax a sheet that lists what they will need if the cases isn't routine, and also make sure to tell them that it's important that the case gets posted correctly because "that makes a difference on whether you're waiting for the kitchen sink or not"