Ok, so I just resigned yesterday from my first nursing job after the 10th week of orientation on a neuro ICU. I realized that this was the complete wrong fit for me and that going to a less acute floor would be a great benefit to me so I can develop prioritization, critical thinking, and other nursing skills. Anyway, now I am looking at my options and ortho happens to be one of them. I can't say that I have a lot of ortho experience from school and don't want to get myself into something I am going to hate. I guess I want to know if ortho will give me a well-rounded start to my career so, that if I decided to move onto something else, the skills I will have acquired will be of use to me. Also, for those of you who work in this area (whether you started as a new grad or with experience), overall, do you like it? My previous job left me so drained both physically and emotionally (I cried practically every day!). The pt outcomes on my previous unit were usually very poor and I felt like all my hard work really never paid off b/c most of my pts were in comas or the family would want to withdraw care...I became very depressed. I have been told that ortho pts are very hard and heavy with lots of lifting, etc, which kinda scares me a little. I know that no job is going to be perfect or stress-free but, I'd like to atleast have a job that I can kind of enjoy. Any thoughts are appreciated...thanks!
I've been an Ortho nurse for 5 years and love it. Yes, it is heavy work, yes, you do push a lot of pain meds and yes, ortho patients can be very demanding, but you get to see your pts WALK out of the hospital.
We have a joint replacement program on our small floor and this is the majority of patients we see. Out of bed hours after surgery and discharged on the 4th day. We do not use CPM's anymore (problems with immobility and skin breakdown) foley's are d/c'ed post-op day #1 at 6am, as are PCA's and IVF's. and NO BED PANS! After that they must walk to the bathroom. We have no techs on our floor so the 2 RN's cover up to 6 patients each and give half the patients baths, bathed and clothed and OOB for b'fast. Seem Busy? How about very, very few codes, very little pts in distress (except pain), very few rapid response, very few calls to ortho docs in the middle of the night (there are standing orders for everything under the sun), time to actually talk to patients and get to know them and quite a few night that you can sit and read the news paper and do a crossword.
You do get to keep your skills up in other areas because you do have patients with all kinds of medical hx, COPD, DM, CABG, etc. and we do have remote tele. And we get all different kinds of med/surg pts when census allows. Really check out with your hospital and see what type of Ortho floor you have. Other hospitals in my area have Ortho/Oncology, Ortho/Trauma, etc.
i am a new grad med/surg float nurse and one of the floors i float to is the ortho floor. It is very specialized and the patients are definitely heavy, but i am learning so much on this floor and love floating there!
Just because it is an ortho floor does not mean you won't have medical problems with your patients. Plus there is the WON-derful idea of bed assignment people that a nurse is a nurse when at midnight you get an acutely ill medical/cardiac etc patient because after all YOU have the bed. You will get plenty of excitement in ortho so you can keep your med/surg/neuro and even OB/GYN on a rare day.
I personally found ortho MY niche. Try it you may like it.
OOOOOOOOThat first comment fumes me!!! YES it is a good Idea usually med surg and ortho go hand n hand. You will get awesome experience and ortho is really cool. You get to know the surgeries performed most frequently and know the docs well and what they use and like med wise and when they dc the patients what they go home with. If you love helping basically HEALTHY people than go for it. These people usually have optional surgeries or a broken hip leg etc from a fall. They love caring helpful people and when they are in pain THEY ARE just be compassionate and understanding make sure your round and check on them on beginning shift regarding meds pain and positioning. Of course BLEEDING on the post ops that are fresh. Have fun ortho is alot of fun and you can have great patients or bad ones but that depends on you your attitude and management. THERE ARE NO BAD PATIENTS JUST BAD NURSE be a good nurse. hugs and smiles
I work at Ortho/neuro unit, i started a residency program in October so far i like it n i have learned a lot, ortho/neuro pts can have different kind of medical conditions so u get to see diff. things. The only draw back about my floor is i get 6pts day shift and lots of interventions to chart on, when it's a bad day u get pts calling you here and there then u get behind on charting, then u have to stay over to catch up with charting which takes forever. PT and OT are also big help to us not forgeting our PCTs TEAM work. So far planning to stay atleast 2 yrs, as a new grad i'm glad i started here.
Yes, I think its a great place for a new grad! It's hard work but all nursing is but you will learn so much - if I ever went back into a hospital setting I would definitely choose ortho (I've worked different areas).
go for it!!!! ortho is the only floor specialty i will ever take! you will be so great at time management and have an unbelievable bedside manner. things can get hairy quick but after a couple near-codes, you can pick up and intervene quick! good luck
I'm glad to see this thread. I'm hoping to get into NS for the fall and ortho is an area that I really would like to try out. Ideally I'd like to get myself into a hospital that does a lot of ortho like HSS or HJD in NY and be on a peds floor so it would be a lot of peds ortho. I think it combines two areas (peds and ortho) that I have a lot of interest in.
nurselori001
11 Posts
I've been an Ortho nurse for 5 years and love it. Yes, it is heavy work, yes, you do push a lot of pain meds and yes, ortho patients can be very demanding, but you get to see your pts WALK out of the hospital.
We have a joint replacement program on our small floor and this is the majority of patients we see. Out of bed hours after surgery and discharged on the 4th day. We do not use CPM's anymore (problems with immobility and skin breakdown) foley's are d/c'ed post-op day #1 at 6am, as are PCA's and IVF's. and NO BED PANS! After that they must walk to the bathroom. We have no techs on our floor so the 2 RN's cover up to 6 patients each and give half the patients baths, bathed and clothed and OOB for b'fast. Seem Busy? How about very, very few codes, very little pts in distress (except pain), very few rapid response, very few calls to ortho docs in the middle of the night (there are standing orders for everything under the sun), time to actually talk to patients and get to know them and quite a few night that you can sit and read the news paper and do a crossword.
You do get to keep your skills up in other areas because you do have patients with all kinds of medical hx, COPD, DM, CABG, etc. and we do have remote tele. And we get all different kinds of med/surg pts when census allows. Really check out with your hospital and see what type of Ortho floor you have. Other hospitals in my area have Ortho/Oncology, Ortho/Trauma, etc.
Give it a try, you just might love it!