I am quitting the OR. I just can't take it anymore. A little background: I'm a relatively new grad, about two years out of school, and I went straight to the OR after graduation. At first it was really hard, but I'm proud to have stuck it out longer than a lot of folks. My first OR hired ten new grad nurses in the time I was there; all but me and one other had quit by the time I left ten months later. I've had trouble in all three facilities I've worked in: the first one had a lot of bad-tempered staff and surgeons, the second had absolutely insane management, and the last...well, I'll tell you about it.
For some reason, this hospital just couldn't get it together. The in-room staff was great, but the support staff was awful. Our supply person never ordered anything until we were completely out, and because of arthritis in her hip, she wouldn't get up from her chair to help find specialty items. She'd just tell us "Oh, we don't stock those anymore," and I, the circulator, would have to go back into the room and tell a surgeon, who knew perfectly well that we _did_ stock the item he'd been using for the past ten years, that I couldn't get him what he needed. The instrument technicians could have been replaced with recordings that said "Find it yourself," for all the help they gave when your last pair of tenotomy scissors had just fallen on the floor. And the schedulers, they were the ones that pushed me over the edge.
It was funny in a "Why us, Lord?" sort of way when they scheduled twelve laparoscopic cases in one day (we only had five laparoscopy sets. Some cases were delayed by two hours while we turned them over.), and when they put our only MRSA case in as the first case of the day, we just moved that patient to the last case and had them sit in the isolation room in pre-op all day. But imagine my surprise when I came in one morning to find my first case scheduled as "Parotidectomy, sigmoid colectomy, and perianal sigmoid colon resection."
Waitaminute...parotidectomy AND sigmoid colectomy? It's been a while since I had basic anatomy, but aren't those at opposite ends of the body? And aren't they completely different specialties? And wouldn't there be some kind of contamination issue with working on the colon and the parotid at the same time? I left my poor scrub alone to open while I went to sort things out.
Come to find out, only the perianal colon resection part was on the consent. OK, I thought, we'll just set up for that. I consulted the preference card. It looked plausible. Lithotomy position, Yellofin stirrups, General Basic instrument set. We set up that way, and got ready to bring in the patient. Enter the surgeon, who promptly asked, "Where's all my prone position stuff?"
Yep, our card was wrong. Totally wrong. Abominably wrong. You see, the cards were generated based on the (completely erroneous) schedule, and consequently what we had was an excellent description of how to do a sigmoid colectomy with perianal resection, instead of a simple perianal resection. Oh, and our useless supply person was on leave having her bad hip replaced, so we had only a clueless temp worker supplying the OR. It took me almost ten minutes to find a lousy foley cath kit. I spent about 80% of that case out of the room, running to get supplies that we should have had pulled before the case. In my mind I pleaded with the patient, "Please don't code. Please don't code." My counts came out correct, but in my consternation, did I open something countable and forget to write it down? I honestly can't remember. I was so flustered and upset by being caught unprepared that, to my eternal shame, I started crying in the middle of surgery. In front of a student who happened to be having an OR observation day. Yeah, that's one that's never going to work in the OR, ever. Thankfully, the charge nurse saw what bad shape we were in, and came in to give me a break. I ran to the lounge, still sobbing, and kicked the bejeesus out of several hapless chairs. When I calmed down, I scribbled on a piece of note paper "Can't take it anymore. I quit. My last day will be Sept. 30." and taped it to the manager's door.
So, I need to get out of the OR. When it goes well, it's the best job in the world, but the stress is too much. I'm not sleeping, I'm eating compulsively, I'm suddenly afraid of a lot of things that never scared me before. My boyfriend tells me I'm much more irritable when I have a bad day at work, and there are so many bad days. Problem is, I still have to pay bills, so I need to find somewhere else to go with decent pay. Also, I've identified myself as a tough OR nurse for a couple of years; I have trouble allowing myself to do something I see as "not elite." Are there any ex-OR nurses out there who found happiness in other areas of nursing? Any suggestions on where I should go from here? Any advice on where to go from here?
Unfortunately there are a large number of smaller hospitals, private hospitals, and surgeon-owned hospitals/surgicenters where the docs are ALWAYS right and can get away with murder.
RN1989
1,348 Posts
Unfortunately there are a large number of smaller hospitals, private hospitals, and surgeon-owned hospitals/surgicenters where the docs are ALWAYS right and can get away with murder.