Nursing Student has questions

[NStiger88]

do most OR nurses get to assist in surgery? what does one usually do during a surgery? Also, can one get a Masters in surgery. I work in a doctors office building and a Neurosurgeon has about three NPs on staff who assist but I was confused as to what they may have gone back to school for, exactly..

[knapper45]

Hello There!

The RN in the OR is the Circulating nurse who is in charge of all patient care in that room. We supervise scrub techs, document all care, ensure patient safety and provide assistance to everyone in that room. As for what is called "first assisting" where one stands across from the surgeon and assists with surgery, you can do that in a number of ways. There is the PA and NP who get reimbursement; ot the RN can go through a RN First Assistant program to become a RNFA or CRNFA (certified through AORN/CCI) but these RNFAs do not always get reimbursed. Thus the NP who assists! I am a CRNFA who is hospital employed and I love what I do. I am there when they set up the room, when the patient comes in the room and I stay in the rrom until the patient goes to PACU! That is how we differ from a PA- we focus on the total patient, not just the procedure! Hope this helps! :redpinkhe

[core0]

Hello There!

The RN in the OR is the Circulating nurse who is in charge of all patient care in that room. We supervise scrub techs, document all care, ensure patient safety and provide assistance to everyone in that room. As for what is called "first assisting" where one stands across from the surgeon and assists with surgery, you can do that in a number of ways. There is the PA and NP who get reimbursement; ot the RN can go through a RN First Assistant program to become a RNFA or CRNFA (certified through AORN/CCI) but these RNFAs do not always get reimbursed. Thus the NP who assists! I am a CRNFA who is hospital employed and I love what I do. I am there when they set up the room, when the patient comes in the room and I stay in the rrom until the patient goes to PACU! That is how we differ from a PA- we focus on the total patient, not just the procedure! Hope this helps! :redpinkhe

Lets see I do the work up on the patient. I do the pre-op H&P. I order the labs and get the consent. I get to the room before the surgeon and make sure everything that they need is there. I assist. I take the patient to the ICU and write the ICU orders. I see them daily while in the hospital. I do some of the discharge teaching. I follow the patient in clinic after the surgery. Now who focuses on the total patient:smokin:.

To the OP the reason that the neurosurgeon uses NPs is largely because of the way that Medicare (and most other insurance) reimburses. The reimbursement is for the care of the patient during and after surgery (what is called the global period). The reimbursement covers all of the care no matter how much is involved. Because of this Medicare has decided that only physicians and non-physician providers (NP, CNM, PA and in some states CNS) can be reimbursed for assisting in surgery.

RNFAs do a great job in the interoperative phase. However, this is only part of what is involved in taking care of a surgical patient.

David Carpenter, PA-C