lejohnson93

I work in the OR, and one of my nursing coworkers is going to school for her FNP and she only had 1 year of med/surg experience and she's been in the OR ever since. We have a few NP's in our facility that see patients in the office and also first assist in surgery as well. You definitely have options!

Yeah I've applied at two different hospital OR's and they seem to have the same staffing/call issues as well.

Hey all, I'm a 1.5 year RN seeking advice about burnout and stress related to working in an understaffed OR. I have worked in the OR since I graduated, and inititally thought it would be where I lived out my nursing career. But unfortunately at my facility, we have been extremely understaffed since before I was even hired, and that has lead to very low morale and excessive amounts of weekend and night call. My last pay period, I worked my normal 80 hours with 28 hours of call back on top of that. The management has proved to be very unhelpful, and is of the mindset that "We're just going through a season and everyone needs to be supportive and pick up the slack." After almost 2 years of the same speech, I'm not optimistic that these issues will be resolved any time soon. I'm very saddened that I have been pushed to the point where I dread coming to work. I love being a circulator, but the stress of this environment has had a huge impact on me. I've interviewed at a few different OR's, but after job shadowing and talking with some of the staff, it seems like they are having the exact same issues that my facility is. At this point, I'm thinking about switching to a different specialty, but I'm curious if there are any other OR nurses have gone through these same issues and have found ways to effectively deal with the stress/problems without going to a different specialty. Or if you have switched from OR to something else, I would like to hear about your experience as well. Thank you!

Hey all, I have been working in the OR since I graduated last summer, and initially thought it would be where I stayed throughout my career. Due to continuing staffing issues that my management refuses to resolve, and the excessive amounts of mandatory overtime and night/weekend call I am being required to take, I have been feeling increasingly stressed and burnt out where I work. I also have a 50 minute commute to and from the hospital that I work at now, which isn't helping resolve this stress either. I have been searching around for a new job closer to where I live, and I have toyed with the idea of looking into L&D as a new career path. I have found that the issues I'm facing in my current job are very common in other OR's that I have interviewed at, and I'm trying to avoid getting myself into a similar situation. While I really have enjoyed being a circulator and the variety of cases that I get to do at a Trauma hospital, the stress has had a pretty big impact on me mentally, and I feel like it might be a good time for a change and a fresh start before I start feeling burnt out on nursing entirely. As a nurse with no L&D experience outside of my nursing school clinicals, I'm a little apprehensive about possibly working in that unit, and I am hoping that someone has had a similar experience and would be willing to give me some insight into what it was like to switch to L&D from a different specialty.