Any ortho nurses out there?

[Sweetme2]

I'm a new nurse, going to start my residency in 2 weeks. My unit will be med-surg surgical but mostly ortho. Can you tell me how your day will be like night and days? I'll be orientating during the day but working nights after. You get report and then what? Is it true ortho is mostly paid meds and getting them up? 

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Ortho does indeed involve a lot of pain control and mobilization. But also preventing complications like atelectasis, VTE, and constipation and working towards discharge.  For the elderly hip fractures you must work on prevention pressure ulcers.

It's not too horribly different from other post-op patients.  

Good luck!