Career Advice

[fitzgeky]

Hi everyone!

So I am a nurse with about 1 year of floor nursing under my belt and I just got a new full time job as an OR Nurse. I'd like to work in a pediatric OR and my ULTIMATE goal is to become a Pediatric Nurse Anesthetist (if those even exist), but to get into a CRNA program, one needs to work in an Critical Care Unit as a RN for 1 year. I guess my two questions are:

1. How does an OR Nurse get into a Pediatric OR Room?

2. Can an OR Nurse get into a CCU?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Nurse ABC]

In our general hospital we don't have OR's specifically for peds. We use the same rooms for everyone. The ENT team sees more children due to the tonsillectomies and ear tubes so maybe you could ask to be on that team once you're out of orientation if they'll let you. I suppose if you worked at a children's hospital of some sort you would be able to mainly work with kids.

There's no reason you wouldn't be able to transfer to a CCU of some sort one of these days. You just have to apply for it like you did this job. You don't use the same type of skills so you will have to re-learn a lot of things on top of all the new things in a CCU but it's doable. The OR orientation is very long and involved. They won't be to happy to spend all that time training you just to have you up and transfer in 6 months to a year so I would plan to stick this out for a while. This will give you a first hand look at what the nurse anesthetists are doing day in and day out. Congrats on your new job!

[klone, MSN, RN]

1. How does an OR Nurse get into a Pediatric OR Room?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Get a job working as an OR nurse at a children's hospital

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

I worked in Pediatric ICU for many years, at a large teaching hospital. This would be great for you~ you would meet lots of other people in the pediatric circle, and could "network" in preparation for the job you ultimately want. We did not always specifically have pediatric surgeons~ it depended on the type of surgery needed, trauma, plastics, etc. If we had to send a child out to another hospital in our network, the pediatric RN always went with the patient; we attended the patient "wherever" the patient was, whether it be in recovery, surgical ICU, etc. We got a lot of varied experience that way. Good luck.

[tewdles, RN]

Congratulations on your new job.

My advice...spend a minimum of 6 months working on the fundamentals of the OR position.

When you feel pretty confident in most situations (ie: you don't feel dangerous), express a gentle interest in the peds cases.

If your OR is smart they will get you in with the other RN staff that prefer that asap.

I agree that PICU experience, especially in a teaching hospital, will advance your goals.

Good luck!

Good luck.