Hello just passed the boards.. Is O.R a good choice for a 1st job as a nurse?

tessa_RN · Sep 22, 2006

I havent worked in the CCU but I am a new nurse that passed my boards in May and the OR is my first nursing job..I have to say that I love it...One reason why people I work with leave the OR to work ICU is because they want to be CRNA's. I think it depends on what you want to do and what you feel comfortable with..In my hospital you have to work at least a year on Telemetry or Cardiac Stepdown to be in the CCU...Goodluck on deciding..Its a hard thing to decide where you want to work at..Goodluck!!!!and congrats on passing boards :balloons: but in my opinion if you want to be a CCU nurse start out in Telemetry or Cardiac step down or even Open Heart Recovery...You will be able to stay more up to date on heart meds and things if being a CCU nurse is what you really want to do...

laughnsmile · Sep 30, 2006

Call me old fashioned, but I still say a year or so on a floor is never a bad thing. You get to use all those nursing skills you labored so hard to learn, and if you ever decide the OR is not for you, you still have that experience to guide you on to your next endeavor. Also, you will have an idea of how patients are taken care of pre- and post-operatively to bring things together. But thats just my opinion! Good luck in whatever you decide!

lily_lover · Jan 14, 2007

In my opinion, if you want to do CCU nursing, don't do OR. I say that because we had a nurse leave the OR after a year to go to the ICU, and he said he struggled so much with everything, due to the fact that we don't use many of the same skills in the OR as in the ICU. I'm a new grad, and I moved straight into the OR. I love it, and I can't imagine myself anywhere else. I also think that if you don't want to work on the floor, then DON'T. I was told that by many people that I should work on the floor for a while as well, and I knew that was NOT the area for me. Life is short, don't waste it working a job you hate and dread going to. I've talked to many nurses who despise their job but can't afford to quit, and when I ask if they've ever considered changing departments, they look at me as though I'm crazy. Hang in there, and if its at all possible, could you shadow for a couple days in the department, to get more of a "feel" for this? Good luck to you in whatever you decide to do.

sarcasmo · Jan 15, 2007

Congratulations on passing boards! Way to go! Here are my thoughts on this: I have been an OR nurse for 3 1/2 years, and I cannot imagine doing anything else. I really enjoyed the short (1 day) clinical rotation I got in nursing school, but always assumed that you couldn't start out in OR. By the end of nursing school, and in my very first nursing job, I was seriously questioning my desire to be a nurse...I simply wasn't happy being a "floor nurse". As luck would have it, I was offered a job in a small OR and I took it, thinking I couldn't possibly any unhappier than I already was. It only took about 2 weeks for me to realize I was born to do OR nursing. With a very few exceptions, all of the OR nurses I have ever worked with have done very little BUT OR nursing, and I work with some of the best. I have since branched out into pre-op, Same Day Outpatient, and Recovery, and like those areas as well, but I will never quit OR. So my belief is that if you like it and are good at it, that will happen regardless of what other experience you might have. I do believe that many of the skills that are required of CCU nurses (and probably other specialties) definitely fall by the wayside in the OR, so if CCU is your ultimate interest, OR full time might not be the way to go. Don't ever let anyone tell you that someone is "just an OR nurse"....we have a special set of skills and abilities that might not carry over into other areas, but are no less important to the quality care of surgical patients. In a nutshell, I firmly believe that life is too short to NOT love what you do.....find your niche and run with it, whatever that might be. Good luck!