Med surg to OR nursing

[ericaweiner]

When I graduated from nursing school, my first job was in adult med surg for a year and a half. 6 months ago I transferred to peds med surg. After 2 years, I've decided bedside nursing is not for me and I want to transfer to the OR. Does anyone with experience going from bedside to OR have some insight into how the transition is? How different are the jobs? How difficult is the transition?

Thanks!!

[roser13, ASN, RN]

I can't speak to the difficulty comparison - they are such different animals. Most OR's in my area require that a nurse sign an agreement to stay with the facility for X number of years after their orientation. Orientation can be 9 months, possibly longer, and the facility doesn't want to invest that much time and expense in a nurse who leaves after 6 months.

[RNperdiem, RN]

I am looking at OR myself in the future. Talking to a few former OR nurses in my department, showed me where the main differences are. First, unlike med-surg, you share your space with several people. For the duration of the case, you will be in the company of others. If you are easily irritated by others, it gets magnified. It helps if you play well with your coworkers.

The hours are often different from the standard med-surg hours to cover the busy times. There is often an on-call requirement.

The hardest part of OR is landing a job.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

While I've never done it personally, I have worked with others who have successfully made the transition from floor nursing to OR nursing (OR nursing is still technically bedside as you are providing direct patient care; it's just a whole other animal). However, it does have an extremely steep learning curve, a contract for a time commitment may be required due to the length of orientation, and I would advise you know quite a bit about what you'll be getting yourself into.

What is it that draws you to surgery? Is it something you've been able to observe in the past? If so, what parts did you observe? I ask because it seems that when we have observers, they are paying attention to the surgery itself and observing the actual duties of the nurse seems to be less than an afterthought. I strongly advise that if you haven't done so, spend a day shadowing in the OR, and instead of focusing on what observers tend to focus on, pay attention to what the nurse is doing.

That being said, you can probably find a wealth of more information in the Operating Room Nursing subforum, which can be found by clicking on the specialties link in the yellow bar at the top of the webpage.