post surgical nursing

Lev, MSN, RN, NP · Aug 26, 2016

I worked on a post surgical floor and really enjoyed my time there and learned a lot! Our floor had a little bit of everything. Ortho, plastics, GI, GYN, Bariatric etc. Once you get the hang of it you will find comfort in the familiarity of post surgical care for various types of surgeries. Once I reached a comfort level and things started feeling routine I left because I crave the new and interesting and get bored quickly, but some will find comfort in the routine. The floor will definitely be busy. You will have to walk patients, deal with their pain, give blood transfusions, manage NG tubes (if you get the GI issues). It is a great place to learn.

Optimistic_RN_ · Aug 27, 2016

Thanks , I've been looking for information everywhere about the typical experience on this type of unit , I found a few and they reflected exactly what you said , which makes me feel like I selected the right job especially as a new grad . I appreciate your input.

BbBaker · Sep 1, 2016

I work on a 30 bed post surgical unit. We do not take ortho or cardiac patients. Our RN-patient ratio is 1:6. In addition to general surgery patients (abdominal, thoracic, wound, etc), we also take speciality uro-reconstruction and bariatric surgery patients. We are not a tele unit, but we do have telemetry monitoring on our unit. I work days. It is considered one of the most difficult units/shifts to work in our hospital.

There is really no typical day on my unit. Some days are easier than others, but almost all days require 110% go, 100% of the time (isn't that nursing in general?). We often get VERY high acuity patients, and often you get 6 of them at once. Expect very sick patients and very needy patients and patients that need you very much. Morning med pass often takes 2.5+ hours. You will be intimate with your facility's controlled substance policies; you will administer LOTS of pain meds and LOTS of antiemetics; you will hate passing pain meds and get sick of hearing how pain is 20 out of 10 - get used to it; get over it and focus on patient safety and doing what you can within safe limits for your patient. You will learn a lot about dressings and wound care. You will do a LOT of dressing changes, wound care, drain removal, staple/stitch removal. If your staff ratio is the same as ours you will never be able to keep up with everything you need to do. As a night nurse you'll pick up the pieces for the day shift; please remember that day shift is chaos with discharges, admits, doctors rounding, patients coming and going from surgery/procedures, etc...we count on nights quite often to finish or fine tune. We have lots of patients on frequent vitals monitoring (q15mX4,q30mX4, q1hX4, q2hX10). We admin blood frequently. Foleys go in, foleys come out, foleys go back in for retention. Lots of peri-care related to foleys. Oh, since a lot of wounds and problems that require surgery are associated with long term uncontrolled diabetes, expect to give lots of insulin, check lots of blood sugars, know your s/s of hypoglycemia, and do TONS of diabetes management education. We also deal with lots of infections and sepsis, and thus give lots of antibiotics and have to watch closely for SIRS, reactions, etc. We also see quite a few ileo/colostomies (new, revised, reversed) that we have to care for.

I've only ever worked on this unit, but I assume it's like nursing in any unit. It will be frustratingly busy at times. You will feel overwhelmed, underappreciated, and at times outright HATE your job. Then about once a week you will have a patient or family member that thanks you so sincerely, or you'll see someone who was nearly dead a week ago go back home to their family, or something will touch you, and you'll be revived and able to survive another 36 hours of chaos.