Pre op RN

I imagine you are well into what you are doing since you posted this 4 months ago but here are some ideas for making your practice in this area really work for you.

Perianesthesia nurse's primary responsibility is to ensure safety by evaluating readiness for anesthesia and recovery after anesthesia.

Knowing and evaluating all the factors that will influence a patient's readiness for anesthesia, helping patients with anxiety prior to procedures, working with the surgical team to prepare the patient and being an educator for those patients is what is needed prior to surgery.

After surgery your primary responsibility is sedation recovery. It influences every other thing you will do to help your patient with as they prepare to go home or continue to recover in the hospital.

A knowledge base is very helpful. Check on the ASPAN website. There is a certification tab there under the education tab. It gives an outline of what is studied for certification in the area you are working. Here is the study plan:

https://cpancapa.org/pdf/CPAN_CAPA-StudyPlan.pdf

Here are the study tools that are recommended: https://cpancapa.org/pdf/CertificationHandbook_StudyReferences.pdf

I personally own the core curriculum and Drain's critical care perianesthesia nursing books and I have also studied the standards book extensively.

There are also many other education tools on the ASPAN website along with membership and conference information. Your local chapter of ASPAN also sponsors education opportunities.

I found that one of the best ways to prepare is to study to get certification. Once you have 1200 hours of direct patient care working about half time you are eligible to take the exam. Even if you don't take the exam the study will help immensely. I transferred to perianesthesia nursing 6 years ago after working as an Emergency nurse for 33 years and studying a different knowledge base helped me a lot.

Wishing you all the best in your new area!