Do you love Ortho?

phoenixrn · Jun 2, 2012

I like that most of my patients get better and go home. You see your nursing interventions actually work and patients progress. But don't take it lightly.... when these patient's are fresh post ops they can be pretty sick. You will handle a lot of PCAs, blood transfusions, and nifty gadgets.

I also love the collaboration with physical and occupational therapists. It tampers some of the cattiness that seems to be inherent in nursing.

Now the neurospine patients.... can't say I care for this specialty too much. This is an area of medicine that needs a serious overhaul. Many of these patients were injured on the job, have been screwed over by workers comp for a decade, have seen their lives and loved ones disintegrate and become replaced by opiate dependence. In the worst cases, their opiate receptors are so shot, after a major spine surgery they are in excruciating pain and don't want to get up. Neurosurgeons are often dumbfounded when their surgery doesn't produce perfect resolution of the symptoms.... perhaps that has something to do with the fact that no one counseled or directed the patient to start stretching and exercising to prevent future back problems.

Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a rant. I LOVE ORTHO, I REALLY DO.

P_RN, ADN, RN · Jun 19, 2012

As for me, I found my career HOME in ortho. Lots of work, lots of tears, lots of happiness, code cart stayed unused for months on end, patient stays are too short IMHO, loving patients, appreciative family, sadness when one has no family and no place to go. -----> I AM an ORTHOPAEDIC NURSE

LovedRN, BSN, RN · Jun 22, 2012

I did my preceptorship in Ortho and I want to make a few comments.

First of all, I LOVE Ortho. Nurses treated me as one of their own. I couldn't believe it. I had spend my time in Med Surg before and it wasn't like this. PT/OT/PCT/CNA were our best friends. Nurses helped each others. They even helped me!!!

When I made mistakes, they would be like "It's ok. You are learning" or "Don't worry about it. I fixed/corrected/etc... for you already. Here I will show you..." or "I had made the same mistake too. All you need to do is ......."

My preceptor even called HR and asked if there is any opening. Sadly they weren't any opening at the time. And when they were, I was studying for NCLEX. My preceptor called me and said that she counldn't believe it, "they just hired a ton of new grads and you were not in it." She is also my reference.

Pt were nice too and so were their family.

Too bad with this economy they are not hiring any new grad any more. Miss being in Orth.

sarahsmile44 · Jun 23, 2012

Thank you for the comments! I'm super excited to start on the floor this Wednesday.

9livesRN, BSN, RN · Sep 19, 2012

Ortho is amazing, I work in an ortho spine unit We have a 4:1 ratio on days and 5:1 on nights, techs to suite the acuity, and a secretary on day shifts, the cool thing about ortho is that peole still have their medical issues, that sharpens your skills, along with codes, telemetry and rapid responses, you become some what critically inclined! Would only trade ortho for trauma!

KittyinNj · Feb 1, 2013

ortho sucks, u have to lift everyone and their legs reposition etc. most pts r full assists add a spina bifida patient to a group of 5 and the day sucks !