irishrnbsn

Thank you so much, there is definately a lot of helpful information in your answers. I currently live in Orlando and am willing to move anywhere in Florida, Georgia, Texas and North & South Carolinas to get into the OR. I worked med/surg for 3 years in OK then decided to move back here to FL and have been having to take med/surg positions even though they are not what I want and am simply ready to do just about anything to get into working in the Operating Room. I have no problem doing an internship or signing a contract to work somewhere, I am fine with a cut in pay as long as I can live which I imagine it would have to be a drastic cut for me not to be able to pay rent, electric etc. I always make sure to mention that I am single without children in interviews so they know I am pretty unencumbered. I'm a little worried about the physically fit, I am overweight, but not to the point that it slows me down in any way. I am rarely ill and don't have any medical conditions. I believe that I do have the skills to work and be an asset to the setting, I just need someone to let me in so I can prove it. I feel like I need the "key" to unlock the opportunity and so that is why I wrote this post, hoping that some of the information will be that key that helps an interviewer say, yes, I want this person to come work here. I appreciate all of the information, I am calling hospitals in FL this week to see when they will be offering OR programs, the other two I mentioned are out of state, going to apply for as many as I can! I will keep you posted.

I am an RN that has been working in Med/Surg/Telemetry for 5 years. I have been applying for OR positions and realize that in order to work in the OR I will have to apply for an internship. I have called a few hospitals and found out when they will be hiring for these internships and plan to send in my application. My question is what specifically are nurse managers in the OR looking for? I am not sure if these hospitals prefer new grads to experienced nurses and would really like to be able to nail at least one of these interviews. What kind of questions are asked in interviews for OR nurses? What are the characteristics and strengths managers are looking for when hiring for OR positions? What should I absolutely NOT say when being interviewed? Any helpful tips or advice? I was reading another post by an OR nurse who suggested the person should take a perioperative course? Is that reall useful? I have found that hospitals don't really take these kinds of courses into account but if any of you have experience where it has then I will certainly look into it. Any suggestions, tips, advice, warnings, etc anyone has would be much appreciated! Thanks, EMD

Hi, I am an RN that has been working in Med/Surg/Telemetry for 5 years. I have been applying for OR positions and realize that in order to work in the OR I will have to apply for an internship. I have called a few hospitals and found out when they will be hiring for these internships and plan to send in my application. My question is what specifically are nurse managers in the OR looking for? I am not sure if these hospitals prefer new grads to experienced nurses and would really like to be able to nail at least one of these interviews. What do you believe makes the most effective OR nurse and do you have any tips for the interview? Thanks, ED

I know that in my experience trying to switch departments now is a friggen nightmare! I went into nursing partially so that I could move around and change it up but somewhere along the line hospitals decided they didn't want to do this anymore and it's like you are pigeon-holed into whatever you started in. ESPECIALLY if you want to go to a different hospital and attempt to get into a new specialty, all you get is a standard reply email saying you don't have experience in that area. I had a place tell me they would rather hire a brand new grad for the ICU then someone with 3 years of med/surg/tele experience. Stupid.

Don't forget about LITIGATION as a reason for these problems. The last place I worked we had a very tall and intimidating man who would come in with "chest pain" and be found to be positive for cocaine each time. Because we were a large hospital system you could see by looking in his visit history where he would simply go from campus to campus sometimes being admitted, sometimes not - what he wanted was a prescription for pain medications. I don't understand, to me, if we have determined what the chest pain is from, we have worked him up multiple times, the obvious hospital shopping he does is documented then why is he continually admitted and then allowed to treat the staff like crap and scare them? I think its because if we turn him away and he has a heart attack then we are sued and the hospital would probably settle out of court. People need to start taking responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming others. Also, now with the government deciding what they will reimburse for based on HCAPS, we have to make the patients happy no matter what. Have you read the questions on that thing?! People need to realize that being a patient is NOT the same as being a guest in a hotel or a customer at McDonald's. I know you want your MRI results now, but that is simply not realistic. We need to stop giving in to this "I want it NOW" mentality. Patients act like it is so unbelievable that their DR won't be in at 8am like they would like. If a Doctor has an office and then 15 patients in the hospital HOW are they supposed to see all 15 of those patients between say 8 and 10am AND sit down and have a 30 min conversation with each one? Peoples expectations are out of control as are the hospital administrators. If I am in a room cleaning up a patient who's orifice just exploded by myself because you decided to take all the NTs away, then how am I supposed to get Mr. Jones down the hall the orange juice he wants within what HE thinks is a timely manner? Perhaps I should give him you extension number and see how you deal with being called all day long. Ugh. I am just so over nursing. I am an educated person, I don't deserve to be abused the way I am by patients, their families, MDs, other employees of the hospital and then turn around and have the system I work for tell me I should have done this or that. I know the patient is 1st, but do we not deserve respect as well?

Well call me crazy but I consider psychology to be in the medical field as well and any social worker that works in a medical facility also works in the medical field in my book, we all have varying degrees of knowledge and scopes of practice, but to me its in the medical field.

I didn't even know you could become a PA without a Bachelors degree in something. Maybe out of the military? Not sure. I'd have to check that out.

Thank you for backing me on the DNP thing (people are very particular about semantics here, I'm not publishing this in a magazine for Christ's sake), where I am schools are also going to DNP programs only.

I apologize for all those that have attacked you, you can easily see why you hear "nurses eat their young" frequently. If we would stop b*tching at each other, and instead worked together, maybe we could make some positive changes for nurses in this country.

What field would you consider nursing in, if it requires no medically based learning? I'm pretty sure I had to learn alot about medication, anatomy, pathophysiology, etc to get my nursing degree. No, it isn't to the extent of Doctors and I didn't say it was, I comparing NPs to PAs at that point. It's true nurses have a different approach to caring for patients, but we still know what's going on in the body.

Sorry, I should have clarified I live in Florida, so calm down before jumping down someones throat. All you had to say was it is different in different states. In Florida you have to have an agreement with a physician to work, see below from the Board of Nursing and you cannot prescribe narcotics here as an NP either (PAs can): An Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner shall only perform medical acts of diagnosis, treatment, and operation pursuant to a protocol between the ARNP and a Florida-licensed medical doctor, osteopathic physician, or dentist. The degree and method of supervision, determined by the ARNP and the physician or dentist, shall be specifically identified in the written protocol and shall be appropriate for prudent health care providers under similar circumstances. General supervision by the physician or dentist is required unless these rules set a different level of supervision for a particular act. It goes on to say that it is up to the ARNP and MD to come up with said agreement being very specific about everything the ARNP is allowed to do so it looks like it depends on what the MD you are working with is comfortable with you doing. Just because the state says you can, it is up to this agreement. Also some colleges here in Florida are dropping ARNP programs and only offering DNP degrees, this may have to do with the state or our patient population. Many doctors I work with seem to believe that MDs are going to become pretty scarce and DNP is the way to go.

If there is a nurse out there that HASN'T had that type of day, I'd like to know if your facility is hiring!

I am an RN,BSN who has just applied for a DNP (Doctorate of Nursing Practice) program, which is going to be the required degree for a nurse practioner soon. As an NP you are technically always under a Doctor. Your patients may never see that Dr. but if she/he gives you a prescription the Drs name may be on it as well, printed at the top. NPs cannot as of yet prescribe narcotics, PAs can. I am not sure why you think the nursing model doesn't diagnose, just treat, but you haven't gone to nursing school yet so you may not be as familiar with it. NPs usually are just more personable, take a little extra time, look at the whole picture, etc. Like you said Drs are in and out. My thought on PAs is this. Any person who has a bachelor's degree even if it is in say History can go to school for I believe it is less than 2 years and bam he can see patients, write prescriptions etc. But for a nurse to do that they must go through at least 6yrs + of school that is all medically based. I say go to nursing school, work as a nurse for a bit even just a year or 2 and then look back into it. With the health care changes coming it may be very different than it is now.

Well it depends, you have to take prerequistes before you can even apply to a nursing program so if you take those, you definately want to try and get an A or B. If you got low grades in some of the basic classes required for any degree like English you MAY want to retake some of those to get your GPA up. Read around on the site to get an idea what nursing is really about, because the schooling isn't easy, and the job is not glamorous. Make sure it is what you really want to do before taking the classes and if you aren't sure what you want to do yet then put college on hold rather than wasting money taking class after class. Trust me, when you find something you want to do you'll do well in the classes for it because you are enjoying them.

I was told to do Med/Surg when first coming out of nursing school and I did, but unfortunately hospitals aren't the way they used to be. I became a nurse because I wanted to be able to move around to different specialties. At the time I applied for my current position in Progressive Care Unit (I wanted ICU) I had 4 years of med/surg/telemetry experience. When I sent in my application, it was automatically kicked back to me with a generic email saying I didn't have ICU experience. I applied for PCU, same thing, the only reason I got a job was through a friend of a friend. I was told by an HR employee that they would rather hire a new grad for ICU than an experienced nurse. Basically, just know that depending on the health system, you may be pigeon holed into whatever specialty you pick first. I am having problems even transferring within the system, you apply for say an ED internship and again, you get a generic email back with no reason as to why they aren't even willing to talk or meet with you, you can't talk to a person, it's extremely frustating. Keep this in mind. Other than that, those are 2 very different specialties. I only did OB/GYN in nursing school and honestly didn't want to get so personal with the female anatomy. Med/Surg is interesting, I have seen alot of different illnesses, wounds, procedures etc. You can also get a lot of the more unsavory characters in med/surg. I'm not saying it's all glitter and unicorns in OB/GYN, but it can get rough in med/surg. Just depends on what you are looking for.