Is This Normal "Training"

[Omibashu]

I graduated from nursing school in 2010 and worked in the OR for about 18 months, only in Neurosurgery. I left nursing in 2012 and worked in administration. I was just hired at a surgery center as an OR circulator. I was very upfront about my experience and how long I had been out of the clinical setting. They assured me I would have as much training as I needed. They do Urology, General, Ortho, GYN cases. I've only worked about 8 days, all incredibly hectic, with the only other OR nurse there (all the others are out due to COVID). The person "training" me just rushes through everything and I feel like I'm absorbing about 10% of the info. I feel like I'm being so rushed and thrown into things. Last week and today the person training me just said she was leaving when cases were still going on so I had to finish on my own. I don't know any of the cases, prep, position, charting system, nothing. Is this just the way it is in Surgery Centers? My training in 2010 was formal Peri-Op 101 in a major hospital and lasted 10 months. Not sure if I should just suck it up because this is normal or bail. Any advice from OR nurses in busy surgery centers like this?

[11blade, RN]

You need to bail. They are expecting production rate of case load from you with minimal to no training. An experienced OR RN could function in that situation, but it is no place for someone who doesn't have a rounded OR background in the services you note are working there. That said, the work at surgery centers is not typically too taxing in that the surgeons are there every week, the staff usually knows their routines and the cases usually don't run longer than an hour, depending on what specialty is working that day. The thing surgeons always like about surgery centers is the streamlined pace-they can get quite a few cases done quickly (eyes, knee scopes, hand cases, etc.). The emphasis is on SPEED, all day, every day. That theme is going to be on STEROIDS, now that surgery centers are back open. Surgeons are impatient folk at the best of times, and, they've also taken a big financial hit over the past two months. They want to do their regular case load and MORE, to make up for time (and $$) lost. Think of your new job as Dancing with the Stars. You have just joined a cast of professional dancers that expect you to keep up with them at a manic Salsa pace....with no dance lessons. I don't see success in your future there, unless you get some bona fide training with another experienced OR nurse that would, at the minimum, cover all the types of cases they do at that facility.