New to Periop Services! HELP

Go the specialty tab and click on "operating room nursing" see "stickys" at top. Good luck! I do have to wonder, though, why you are putting yourself in this situation with no experience in this field of nursing (?)

Do you have private liability insurance?

Do you have private liability insurance?

NO I do not. Should I?

NO I do not. Should I?

Most definitely. Practicing as DON in areas in which you have no experience/expertise most definitely calls for private malpractice/liability insurance. Practicing as DON in areas in which you do have experience would call for the insurance as well. But in your situation, there is no doubt as to the necessity.

I wish you the best and understand that it's a tight job market. But you are likely taking on a huge assignment and learning curve and will have many hurdles to jump. You need to protect yourself and your license.

I'm sorry to have to say this and I don't mean to sound awful, but do you feel confident doing this position? Your post smacks of insecurity. I don't know how you got hired w/out experience, but periop nurses need to know an awful lot. Why have they put u as DON, if I may ask? And u have to ask why did they put someone inexperienced in this role?

I myself would be asking for a preceptor to be with me for the first few months (or however long they could spare someone). This post is by no means an attack on you - I can see you struggling to explain to a patient re their surgery, the ob's done, the different types of anaesthetics and why they are used - you will get many questions coming your way, not the least of how is my operation done/what will happen afterwards/how long will I be in here? It will be very hard for you to fit into this role, and I'm also thinking of the legal side. You need to know what to look for post op, like when a patient has had an angiogram, post orthopaedic patients - what signs do you look for for compartment syndrome? What other checks should you be doing? I had a pre-op patient last night who had 2 pages worth of detailed questions. I had to explain re medications, anaesthetics, recovery time & some questions he could only ask the surgeon.

It would be helpful if you could get a good surgical nursing text as well, and if I were you, I'd set myself a study schedule. But you really need an experienced nurse next to you at first to answer questions and to troubleshoot problems.

I feel quite scared for you actually. And I myself would not like a DON of periop who had no experience - you need to look into the legal side as well.

Good luck though, I hope it goes OK.

AORN has guidelines you can read their publication. Most ORs have a copy

OP, I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but I think you're going to be in over your head. To be a regular staff nurse and having no previous peri-op experience, you'd get an orientation of 9 months to a year. Being DON means that you will have irate surgeons coming to you with issues, staff coming to you with patient safety issue etc. Surgeons especially can be like sharks when there's blood in the water. Let them get one whiff of the fact that you're not sure of yourself and it'll get ugly.

I've been an ORnurse for 5 years and was a surg tech before that for 6 years. I still would be nervous taking on a DON job.

1. Get a copy of Alexander's Care of the Patient in Surgery, it is your best overview to OR nursing.

2. Orient to the OR as a nurse. You can't lead effectively if you don't know what your nurses do. For instance, if a surgeon walks up to your desk and barks orders, you won't have any reference point for whether or not they are reasonable unless you have some experience in the room.

3. Learn to scrub and learn the basics of sterile processing. Those things are integral to the OR. In most ORs, if all hell breaks loose (the entire staff calls in, there's a case that can't wait), management is expected to step in to whatever roll is needed.

The facility that employes me is small, two ORs. I work for one plastic surgeon, doing 1-5 surgeries a week in our facility. Yes I do have an enormous amount to learn. The doc just agreed to pay for the PERIOP 101: A CORE CURRICULUM course from the AORN.