How does your body handle standing for hours in the OR?

[jkmk]

I'm a pre-nursing student. I have been fascinated with watching in-depth surgeries since I was a kid. I would love to be involved in the OR, but I have trouble standing in one place for a long time. I can run around waitressing for hours with no problem, but the stationary standing just kills my back. Before I completely discount the OR option for me, I wanted to get some of your feedback about it.

As an RN in the OR, are you standing in one place for long periods of time or are you moving around? How many of you are hurting from standing so much? What do you do to deal with it? How long are the surgeries you are in typically? Does anyone get a stool to sit on? Thanks!

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

Your body does get used to standing in one place and to all the running you do. The OR is a very physical environment. As an RN in the OR, you do a lot of running-sometimes when things calm down a little, I can sit for a few minutes.

In the scrub role, you stand in one place a lot, but again, you adjust. I still scrub on occasion and change my shoes to scrub because my circulating shoes don't cut it for scrubbing.

[7out_to_nursing]

What shoes do you wear

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

What shoes do you wear

I usually wear Sketcher's Shape-Ups sneakers for circulating and my Danskos for scrubbing.

[jkmk]

Thanks guys. I'm still not sure if my back could handle it. Is there ever an OR rotation in clinicals?

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

Not usually a full rotation. If you're lucky, you may get a few observation days.

[Mr. & Mrs. RN]

We have stools for charting. Depending on the length of the case, I may sit for quite a while or not at all. I think I got 2 days of OR clinical during my 3 year program.