New Grad Questions/Uncertainties

[pinkbob4]

Hello everyone,

I went to nursing school suspecting I wanted to be an OR nurse, and school confirmed the suspicion. Or, I at least now know for sure that bedside nursing is not right for me.

Please, I'm about to graduate and would greatly appreciate feedback on a few lingering questions/uncertainties about the world of OR nursing.

1. I have zero health care work experience. I did not hold a patient care tech job while in school. And I know that any job is hard to come by. Every job posting wants experience. Is this requirement set in stone, or do some hospitals like to train new unadulterated grads? How did you break into the field?

2. While obviously I could not "do" OR nursing during school clinicals, except observe it happen, I did do bedside nursing on other units. Bedside nursing does not interest me and I knew it going into school. The most stressful thing to me is balancing multiple patients and their families. (In school we only had two at a time. I can't imagine what 5,6,7,or 8 patients would be like!) I'm shy and introverted, and running around interacting with so many people is a sensory overload that, I swear, seems to wear me down more than it does other people.

I'm intrigued by the OR nurse's schedule of handling one patient at a time. Did anybody else have similar reasons for going into OR? What are the trade-offs? What makes OR more stressful? How are the stressors different? Do you think you've had less wear-and-tear done to your body by working in the OR? More?

3. Is OR a unique species of nursing? Meaning, will the skills learned in the OR not really translate to other specialties? Would it be hard to leave the OR for another specialty?

4. I'm drawn to the precision of OR. Is the OR more "formulaic" (for lack of a more precise word, lol) than other specialties? How true is any of this? Am I misguided? Is the OR full of surprises?

5. Can someone explain the different masters/doctorate roles of the nurse in the OR? For those of you who are at these levels, what was your path?

6. Will you talk about different specialties? Anyone do burn unit OR? Neurosurgery? Orthopedics?

7. Explain typical hours/schedules.

8. Have you ever used your OR skills to do domestic/international nurse volunteering? What about OR travel nursing?

Thanks everyone in advance for their helpful replies!

[mhy12784]

(note I am a new grad who has only been working in the OR several months, so im answering your ?s from that perspective)

1. I got hired as an OR new grad with 0 experience, although its not common. Its certainly possible, but I would say its one of the more difficult areas to get into. I just got lucky being in the right place at the right time with a small hospital that just had a voluntary retirement package they offered where a large amount of OR staff left.

2. I think physically theres less wear and tear (although youre at a higher risk for needle sticks etc). But the stress in the OR is VERY real. If its a serious patient, or a surgeon is screaming at you (which happens quite often) youll be stressed. I think floor nursing is more like a steady stream of constant stress running around like a chicken with your head cut off. While OR nursing is more like spurts of high stress, then lulls. Of course this heavily depends on your facility and shift

3. Its definitely unique. I dont think nurses in any other area need to know all the tools/equipment that OR nurses are familiar with. I think at least 98% of the things ive learned in the OR i never heard of or saw in nursing schools or clinicals

4. I have no idea what this means. Im not sure if this is a real word. This is going to depend on your facility and its structure. Sometimes it can be predictable, sometimes things can go to all hell with emergencies. At my facility things are pretty predictable with a large percentage of predictable surgeries (hernias, gallbladders,d/cs), id imagine in trauma centers and or urban areas youll have a crap ton of "surprises"

5. Look up RN Surgical First Assist. You dont necessarily need a masters degree for this, although you can.

6. At my facility you usually start off with general surgery soft tissue surgeries, laproscopic, d/cs, some minor orthopedics. Because its really the basis for your job. You can join a "team" with time (ie the baratric team, eye team etc) specializing in an area but I dont think theres anything special to it. You find an area you like with people you like, and just do them all the time. Its not like going from the surgical ICU to the pediatric ICU or something. But youre likely gonna start off general not on teams

7. Depends on your facility location trauma center etc. My hospital is 7-3 or 3-11 m-f. They offer 4x and 3x a week to accommodate some employees and or advanced schooling etc. If youre in a heavy trauma center they could be open 24/7 (mine is on call only for 11pm-7am) which would have it be different.

8. No. Ive never heard of OR travel nursing either. I think it would be incredibly incredibly difficult to do since different hospitals will use different equipment, and tools/setups could be pretty different as well as the terminology. Its certainly possible and im sure its happened, but I wouldnt count on it

[DLuxe]

1) Many places say they want experience but I wouldn't let that discourage you. When I was looking for a job as a new grad I had HR tell me that the hospital DID NOT hire new grads in the OR. Well, I applied for it anyways and got the job no problem. Turns out they had hired several new grads. I also had no healthcare experience.

2) I agree with the previous poster that the stress levels tend to go up and down frequently. Only rarely do I have shifts where I am under a lot of stress the whole time and those usually only happen when I am charging and they are exhausting. Other times you just be sitting around twiddling your thumbs and then you get a call a ruptured AAA is on a helicopter and will be coming straight to the OR in 20 minutes. Or you will be in an "easy" case that all of the sudden goes bad or the patient crashes. You just never know.

3) Very little of what I learned in nursing school is relevant to my job and very little of what I have learned in the OR is relevant to floor nursing.

4) This is really hard to answer. Theoretically OR nursing is more formulaic but in reality it is full of surprises. I have mostly worked evening/night shifts so my days are less predictable than those that work the day shifts. Also the more trauma/emergency surgeries that your facility does the less predictable thing are going to be. When I worked at a small, lower trauma level facility we rarely saw anything that crazy or unusual compared to the things I see now. Also you have to remember that things are only predictable within a single procedure for a single surgeon under ideal circumstances.

5) From what I have seen those with Masters degrees are usually directors or educators, but at other places those individuals only have BSN degrees so I think that depends.

6) See previous poster.

7) This is also really variable and depends on if the facility is staffed 24/7 or not. I have seen 8, 10, 12 and 16 hour shifts for nurses. Seems like OR shifts are less predicable than the usual 7-7. Call also varies widely but there is always call.

8) I haven't traveled but my current facility uses travel nurses in the OR. I think it would be really difficult. Someone once told me there are two kinds of traveling OR nurses: those that travel because that are SO good they can be effective anywhere and those that can't hold down a real job because they are so ineffective/difficult to work with. This seems to hold true.

Hope that helps!

[pinkbob4]

mhy12784 and DLuxe: thanks for these posts! They have been really helpful. It sounds like it can be an awesome job if you find the right setting and the surgeon isn't screaming.