Are You an RN Working in Orthopedics, Vented/Respiratory or Medicine/Telemetry?

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

I would very much like your feedback if you currently work in one of these specialties. Please share a little bit of what your unit is like, what kind of patients, what you like about your job and what you don't like, the rewards, the frustrations, etc. etc.

I have been given the option to do my med-surg clinical AND capstone in one of these specialties this coming spring semester. It was not my first choice to take this capstone option; I was assigned by lottery (lucky me ). I have the feeling I will just be placed on one of these units by my nursing program and not given the opportunity to choose one out of the three. I just want to be prepared for what is to come.

Thanks for your replies!

[allthesmallthings]

Hi, Paco69. I've worked on an orthopedic floor for a couple of years now. Most of our cases are either s/p hip placement or knee replacement, with also some s/p lumbar laminectomies, acdf's, pcdf's (anterior cervical disc fusion/posterior cervical disc fusion), or s/p shoulder replacement. Our patient demographic is usually middle-aged to elderly, except for the s/p hip repairs, which are little old people who have fallen and broken their hips. We also get a few s/p amputations (diabetics - toes, feet, a few BKA/AKA's).

The good thing about orthopedics is that it tends to have a flow to it - you know that a hip is going to stay about 3 days, a knee 3 or 4 days. The other side of the coin is that it tends to get same-old same-old; a lot of the job falls into 1) rolling people over and looking at their rear ends for bed sores/turning people so that they don't get bed sores; 2) giving pain pills; 3) helping people to the bathroom, and preventing falls. After 2 years of orthopedics, I've gotten so used to "thou shalt not let the patient fall" bit that if I'm walking beside a friend in a parking lot or wherever, I automatically shoot out my arm in front of them if they step off a curb or anything, prepared to prevent a fall! :)

A "pro" is that you get to encourage people to regain mobility, and see them do that within the span of just a few days, help them in a purely physical/mobility way; a "con" is that their bodies pretty much heal themselves, with little intervention from you, not much variation or complications. After a certain point, your learning curve stops; if you want a diverse scope of cases, I would go med-surg; or for more "crucial" stuff, vented-respiratory. Don't know anything about capstone, but good luck.

[Marshall1]

I've worked Ortho in the past. Really liked it.