I am a nurse with 6 years of peds well baby experience and have recently been hired into the OR as a circulator. I have no hospital experience before this and have only worked in an office setting. I have good days and bad days in the past 4 weeks that I have been in the OR but I wanted to seek advice from other nurses or techs and ask them for their insight.
Every Wednesday that I have been in my current position I am assigned (with my preceptor) to a certain cst and one dr. we follow this one particular doctor all day, mostly plastics cases. He will typically ask an array of questions and name very detailed anatomy of whatever he is working on. He will wait about 20-30 minutes and then ask me to repeat whatever we went over previously. If you do not get the answer correct you get 3 choices (phone a friend, 50/50, or poll the audience). Last week we went over the anatomy of the face/lips. He asked me a question I did not know so I phoned a friend and picked his rnfa. she said she didn't know the answer either. after about 40 seconds she finally said the answer but told me rudely I should write everything down. The same tech instigates his behavior. Everyone sings her praises and our charge nurse came in the room today and told her "you make the world go round, not sure what we would do with out you." She also asks for things in a very stern way and half the time she says stuff really quick almost on purpose so i have to ask her to repeat it to make sure I get the right item.
every time i talk with her she is rude and harsh with me. my second week we were setting up a room and she started to put her gown on and i came up behind her and said can i help you with your gown, she replied its not going to tie itself is it? when i am learning how to properly prep the pt she is always standing there it seems like judging me. i understand it needs to be done correctly and i want to do a good job but it just seems like she is looking for a way to intimidate me. when i take a little longer she sighs a lot and it seems like there is always tension and awkwardness btwn us.
The same doctor gave me a hard time about following my preceptor to lunch last week after our relief came for our break. he asked where i was going as i was following my preceptor and she said quietly to me "he wants you to ask him permission to leave with me". he let me go after i asked him. our relief said one time when she was new he made her call the holding room and ask if his next pt had a hcg done and she was over 90 yo. he also made me call our nurse liason and ask for an otis elevator. little did i know that that is a brand of elevator our facility uses. she laughed and came back to the room later and they all had a laugh on my behalf.
most of the dr/nurses/techs have been good to work with. i am just having a hard time differentiating normal behavior on behalf of this particular tech or why she is having a problem with me. i am nice, come to work with a smile on my face everyday i have been there, avoiding being negative and have even tried to have conversation with her and she won't look at me or even reply to me half of the time i talk to her.
to make a long story short i have left the past 2 wednesdays feeling extremely overwhelmed and uncertain that I want to carry on with my training. has anyone experienced a similar situation? i feel like my preceptor and her are always laughing and joking so not sure my preceptor is a great unbiased opinion. my charge nurse is the same way. i know the OR is a tough place and i need to find my way but how do i deal with a hostile co-worker? i can see in her eyes how much she despises me every time she looks at me. should i confront her before going to my manager? i am afraid that if i do so she will spread the word to the rest of the staff and make things worse for me. am i just being paranoid?