Apollonia

Thanks for your reply :) I found this link http://www.crosscountrytravcorps.com/cctc/about-travel-nursing/canadian-nurses.jsp#visa-asst with CrossCountry. From the look of it, they would walk me through the entire process, which seems daunting. If I have to pay, then ok, but at least they would handle all the work. For a Canadian nurse, I think I read that once I pick a company, I have to stick with them and can't work with more then one like the US nurses can, is this true? Also, I work in the OR and while I appreciate what you say about the recession, from the few company websites I saw, there's plenty of OR positions out there. I wonder if the postings on those websites are active/current cause from what I see, there's work for OR nurses.

So I want to travel down to the states. I'm just in the very begining stages of making it happen. I spoke with a recruiter with "Clinical One." She said that I have to handle all the visa issues myself (she told me to google it and when asked whether I need a job first to get the work visa she hesitated and said yes but that it was tricky - like huh?). She said that once I do those things, to contact her and she'd take it from there. Is this correct? I have to do all the work myself in terms of finding all the documents to apply for and pay for it myself? She said that if I want to take the NCLEX, I have to pay for the exam myself, and pay to go to Seattle or somewhere to take it (Im in Vancouver). Is that right? I was kind of hoping a recruiter would help me out with all that, with the visa and nclex and that the company would pay for it. Anyone know?

Thanks guys :) I think I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna travel. I know I should be working towards my future etc. but I don't want the "if only" to be on my conscience, have too many of those already. I think the doubts mean I want to go simply because I would be jumping for joy for getting the line after all this time but i'm not. I keep thinking about wanting to get away. I think I'll go to the states just cause they pay for travel and housing. As far as I've read, Australia doesn't so if I have to pay to go there and to live there, I might as well go there for a vacation lol.

Thanks for the reply. That's too bad about the scrub techs doing all the scrub work. I'll miss that. If I go, I'll make sure to ask for a teaching hospital. I work in one now and I love it, the surgeons and anaesthetists are on their best behaviour with the students :)

I'm in Canada. Thinking of going to the US to work in the OR. Please tell me what it is like down there. In Canada, we have circulating and scrub nurses (both RNs), there's 2 of us assigned to a room, we alternate scrubbing and circulating or whatever someone has a preference. The 3rd RN does break relief between two rooms. We balance out starting the case by brining in the patient, assisting anaesthetist with induction and opening up for the scrub nurse. Circulate during case, if possible check case cart for next case, after case ends, take patient to recovery, then alternate and do same thing over and over. We dont have LPNs, yet, so the RNs do everything. We have a pretty quick turnover but we work together as a team so the day goes by fast. I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of but is this how things work down in the states? How does it work with the Techs.If I go down there will I ever scrub? Are there any differences between public and private hospitals? Also during an 8 hour shift, we get 2 15s and 1 half. (get it 90 percent of the time). Are breaks an issue?

So to give you a brief background. I'm in my late late late 20's. Graduated 1.5 years ago, went into the perioperative program and as soon as I finished the OR program, I was displaced from my full time line for which I was hired. I've been working casual and relief lines. Getting run around from managmnet, budget cuts, OR down time etc. etc. Been out of school for almost 2 years and am not earning benfits (ie. sick/vacation time etc.) So it's as if I wasn't even working is how I see it seeing as im not contributing anything towards my future. I stuck around this OR just cause I actually love it there, just not how i've been treated. So I'm getting to the point where I just need try something new. I was thinking of doing some travel nursing. US. Australia. Wherever. So I started researching it and now my manager told me there's a permament line available for me. After all this time. Jeez. So now am I supposed to drop all my plans because finally there's something available? Or should I hold on to it cause I should be working towards my pension, accruing how much vacation time I have? I don't know how I should approach this. I really want to try something new. But if I decide to go ahead with the process, it will take a few months anyway so I'll have to quit work anyway. I want to travel but should I just hold on to the job I have for my futures sake? Is travel nursing worth it? Should I be practical or try something different. Honest answers please. Travel nursing can't be that great or else everyone would be doing it. Should I just stay in Canada work towards my future?

I'm an RN. but I was thinking more along the lines of traveling to make money as opposed to volunteering with the red cross. Thank you for your reply though :)

I am an Operating Room nurse out of Vancouver. As shocking as this may be to hear, I actually don't have a job now. I lost my full time line and work casual (budget cuts and all...). I want to do some travel nursing with the goal of number 1. making money and number 2. seeing the world. So I'm not interested in working Alberta or Kentucky. Do any of you Canadian fellows have any experiences you can share with me. Working in the US? Somewhere further out like the middle east? Europe? Please share any advice. Agencies. Where to get started. The good and bad. Just anything you can share. Thanks. (I'm putting this in the Canadian section not travel section because I want to get the perspective from fellow Canadians. Thank you for keeping this thread in "Canadian Nurses")

Thanks for everyone to your responses. This makes helping the anesthetist much more clearer. I thought I had to be focusing on the monitors and everything along with being that third hand for then. Thank you.

Does anyone have any tips on knowing what sutures to use when? Like CT needles or SH needles and what type of suture to use when? i'm so confused. I'm new to OR nursing and there's a surgeon who is an absolute nightmare. He doesn't tell you what he needs, just says "suture" I passed him a vicryl SH and he stopped what he was doing,dropped the suture and yelled at me saying "why did you pass me this, cant you see what I'm doing?" Well he was in the bowel so I figured an SH would work but he wanted a silk suture. ahhh. Do you guys have some sort of a system for knowing what to use when?

Hi, new OR nurse just started who needs help. when you're by the patient who is being intubated what are you monitoring for? Do you look at the patient? The anasthetic machine? When you look at the machine, what do you monitor, the 02 sats, pulse, bp? the ECG? What about emergence? Do you look at the gases and whether they're all gone? vitals or the patient? I'm not sure what exactly I should be looking at. Also, is there a website that points out to what all the things on the anasthetic machine monitors are ? please and thank you :)

Does anyone know of a good website that goes through how to read an ECG? I just want the basic info on knowing what type of abnormality I'm looking at. Visuals would be great. I searched but havn't come across anything really helpfull. I don't need something overly complicated. I'm not an ICU nurse that needs to know the ins and outs of all the deviations, I just wanna be able to look at a reading and have a general idea of what I'm looking at.

I'm writing a paper on a change within the health care system. What would you like to see implemented within your setting. The change can be something specific from implementing a new pain flow sheet to something a bit more general. I'd love to hear what nurses would like to see changed within their work. thanks.

I'm writing a letter to the newspaper and I need some help. It's nursing week in Canada and I want to write a letter to the editor hoping they put it in the paper. I want to say how nurses have lots of different roles, they are advocates, educators, managers etc. How they don't just change bed pans. How they're knowlegeable. Should be respected not just for their caring nature but the work they put into their jobs. Things like that. Does anyone know of a website that sort of outlines the different roles that nurses have. Just any tips I could get would be great. Thanks.

Wow did I need to hear that. I think I pretty much made up my mind to go the trauma center but I'm just nervous about doing it. This makes so much sense. It might be harder to go the other way and I can always switch to a smaller hospital if I'm not handling it. I'm actually already been working there for a month as an employed student nurse. I just help circulate on the cases, run and get stuff, prep the patient, foleys, charting, all the little stuff. I've seen a couple of traumas already and yes its crazy, the nurses running around, surgeons cracking the patient right open, at the end one they went through 100 sponges so mop up all the blood so I've seen what they have to do. I'm nervous about it but I think i'm gonna do it. Thanks all.

I'm in Canada so we do both. You alternate the cases so you end up doing half and half each day. I'm wanting to go the trauma hospital thiking that I might as well just jump in there and get it over with, that way I'll be able to handle everything down the line. I think it might be too much though, I dunno what to do. I'll have to really think this through. I've talked to the nurses who work there and they said its doable. Of course, there's a shortage everywhere and they were just trying to recruit me, oh decisions decisions...

I'll be graduating this year. I will be an OR nurse. Sooo excited. I have two options for the hospitals I choose. One is a smaller one that performs maily elective surgeries, some small emergencies like c sections etc. My other choice is a level 1 trauma. This is where the the worst cases go. If someone's in a bad car accident 50 miles away, this is the hospital they go to. They also perform open heart and neuro. They do anything and everything. Where should I go. Should I start out in a smaller, more stable environment, get comfortable in my skills or should I just jump right in there into the more acute, unpredictable cases. If I go to the trauma hospital, will I be ok? Is it too much to start out in. Any advice would be appreciated.

OR stats that I got from the website were how many surgeries they perform a year, how many open heart surgeries they did last year, that they're the only hospital in the fraser valley to do this and this etc. Just specific stats from the hospital website. The questions were standard interview questions but preperaing for them paid off. There were things like what are your strenghts, weaknesses, why do you want to be an OR nurse, why this hospital, what led you to nursing, what do you see yourself doing in 20 years, why should we hire you. Specifically, the hospital is a level one trauma hospital and they don't hire students (i'm in my 4th year and i'm hired as an "undergraduate nurse" - it's a Canada thing) so they needed to make sure I was ready to work in an OR where the slate changes by the hour. They even asked me about my health cause it's such a busy OR. Just standard things but I guess they're asked for a reason. I asked them about the retention rate, why nurses leave when they do, about my perceptor, schedule. I asked them if it'd be possible to work for a day in PACU, and Pre op and the sterile processing place and they loved the fact that I wanted to see the whole OR picture. Things like that. J ust practice your answers and questions so you're prepared. Don't go in thinking you're gonna wing it. It's just not worth it if you think this is what you want to do.

I'm just bumping this in case anyone can think of something. I just got a job in the OR as a student nurse and I"ll take any help I can get. Thanks.

Thanks for your help guys. I got the job! so happy. The interview was over an hour and boy did researching how to interview help. I looked through all the threads I could find here and got some great tips. I think the biggest thing that blew them away is that I knew their OR stats. I looked through the hospital foundation website and they quoted a bunch of great information to wow the public to donate money. Well that info totally paid off :)

Hi, I'm in my last year of nursing and am going for an interview for the OR next week. Please help me with any advice you can give me. What will they ask me? How should I answer? What are they looking for me to say? Any advice would be wonderful. I want this sooooooo bad I dont want to mess it up because of the interview. Thanks.

Hi, I was wondering if someone might give me some help. I'm in my last year of nursing and will be going into the OR when I graduate. I'm in a sememster now that only has clinical so I don't use any of the printing privelages (we have 250 free pages). I want to use those pages up. Are there any resources on the net that you guys could recomend for me to print. Anything at all that'll help with studying, OR training, surgeries, anything at all. The printing is free, or at least already included in my fees, so I wanna use it up. Thanks.

Hello, I'm in my third year of nursing up in canada. Am interested in working in the OR when I graduate. I have a shadow shift in the OR that I was able to arrange for myself. I have a question What should I ask the nurses while I'm there. Is there anything specifically that I should find out, to know whatever it is I should know before deciding to work there? I hope that makes sense. Oh and I love the sticky, thanks to whoever posted that.

Hello, I'll be studying or nursing in a year. I want to get a jump start on the studying. I bought Alexander's care of patient in surgery, 13 ed. Is that good? I thought I'd just start reading it. I also want to buy a surgical tool book such as differentiating surgical instruments. http://www.amazon.com/Differentiating-Surgical-Instruments-COLLEEN-RUTHERFORD/dp/0803612249/ref=sr_1_1/104-9125081-9360759?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180456249&sr=8-1 Is that a good idea? to just start memorizing the tools? Anything else I could be doing now. Knowing the human anatomy like the back of my hand? Any tips would be great. thanks!!!!!

Something like that, but without the cost cause as far as i see you have to pay to use the website.