New Grad OR Nurse Here

[redraider1977]

Starting in June. Any advice on what I can be doing in the mean time to prepare myself? I was told to not worry about any other certifications at this time.

[anita_li17]

@billyrec ... i was wondering how you got hired straight out of school, and in the OR!? I'm interested in working there as soon as I graduate, and if you had any tips on what their looking for in students, that would be a great help!!! (anything from personal to professional skills)

[billyrec]

I just applied. I knew someone who worked there who put in a good word as well. But really how things are going these days if you want a job you have to know someone or atleast in my area because its just flooded. I work at a teaching institution and they have no problem hiring new hires. They much rather teach them right and have them do the right thing than have a person with bad habits. Try to go to the hospital you want to work and start talking to the recruiters. Get the name of the nurse manager of the unit you want and go for a visit. In these days of job competition a face to face visit works great versus just blindly applying. I got two interviews doing it.

The OR is just completely different than anything you will do in school. It took a while to get used to.

[redraider1977]

Mine is solely circulating. The hospital is a huge multi-specialty practice and we get oriented to many different areas of surgery. Mine is 6 months.

[billyrec]

You hospital sounds like mine minus just having to circulate. We had a 6 month orientation which mine was cut short. We had to go through all the different units as well. I liked transplant and ortho/trauma the best.

[redraider1977]

Yeah, I am psyched to get started. What area are you doing now?

[AFwife727, BSN, RN]

I am in my 3rd (finishing up, going onto 4th) semester of nursing school. I am looking to possibly work in the OR after I graduate next May. I do not want to work as a floor (med-surg) nurse. I have seen firsthand the STRESS of every single one of those nurses and it scares me to death! Currently, I work as a Nurse Tech on a rehab floor (stroke, hip replacement patients, etc). Do you think that having this tech experience will help me in getting a job in my unit of choice? I had a meeting with the Director of Nursing at the hospital and have met the nurse in charge of hiring a few months ago just to get my foot in the door. They now know my name. I am at a teaching hospital and there are several other teaching hospitals in the area as well (one of them being Tampa General Hospital).

I have heard that the OR is pretty stressful and fast-paced, but nursing in general is stressful... I love medicine (changed my major from pre-med to nursing and I think that watching surgeries would enable me to learn all the time!