Anything I can do while I'm studying for the NCLEX to make myself “OR ready”? I was an OR nurse in Australia for one year but felt like I've forgotten everything.

RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN · Oct 11

Hi there! I trained as a RN in South Africa back 32 yrs ago and after having worked in. the US in Flight and Critical Care Transport nursing , I joined the OR/ Theatre at my hospital 5 yrs ago. You have a strong grounding in theatre nursing so you should be good. I think the biggest thing to learn is the charting/ documentation system ; the specific process at your hospital for handling specimens, ordering blood/ tests etc and perhaps some of the different technology. Scrubbing is largely the same. Some of the instruments might be called different names, but you pick up on that very quickly. There are no anesthetic nurses here so if you're circulating / scout RN, you will assist with connecting monitors, Induction and with the intubation . The anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists here are very capable doing stuff for themselves and many hospitals have anesthesia "Techs" who set up the anesthetic machine, clean it etc and even set up Invasive pressure line transducers and IV lines etc so there is not much to do as the nurse in that regard. Depending on where you work , there might be surgical technologists . I'm in California at a large teaching hospital so most of the nurses scrub so we have alot fewer surgical techs. I will say that our theaters run 24/7 and we have cases in many rooms going on late into the night. There is not such a thing as the lists being done by 4 or 5pm . We are often starting elective cases at 7 or 8pm at night and doing elective stuff on the weekends as well. For me, that was quite different back in SA where most cases were done round 5 or 6pm and theatre generally closed except for unexpected emergencies. Best of luck in your US journey.

lilstudentnurse19 · Oct 11

@RickyRescueRN

Wow Ricky, thank you for your response!
That's reassuring that my skills are enough. Oh back in Australia, my hours were 8am-5pm, only experienced nurses worked night shift and after hours. Do you know what the hours are in the US? We did not have surgical techs back home, they seem to do alot too.

I hope my experience will be enough, I'm very anxious about working in the US. Now, to prepare by studying for the NCLEX!

RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN · Nov 12

The theaters at most large hospitals usually start at 06:30am with day shift. Then round 9am and again at 11am additional nurses start in order to give morning and lunch breaks (at least that is how it is here in California where all breaks are state legislated, which is a good thing). Some nurses shifts end at 3pm , while other end at 5pm and 7pm depending on what shift/ commitment you are hired into. I do 3 12hr shifts/week. The offshift/ swing shift nurses cover the evening through till 11pm at night and then each service (Neuro, Ortho, General) typically goes down to overnight call teams. There are Two overnight RNs (one is the Charge nurse) and two surgical techs to cover crashing traumas coming up emergently from the Trauma Resus area. They are for general /trauma cover only , and the specialist nurses on call for each speciality service line are then called in to take over the cases (if Ortho, Neuro etc).