Celia214

Two mistakes and you are going to quit!!! Dont do that, you are going to make several more, just take it as a learning experience and I promise you, you'll probably never make those same mistakes again. In the OR we all make mistakes, the important thing in the OR is being able to speak up and say when you do, so that it can be fixed. Be the person who does the right thing even when no one is looking. If you have the feeling that says I love this job and I belong here, stick with it. It gets better ( may get worse first), but then better. WHen I was a new OR nurse I cried everyday for about 2 months, after I had finished orientation of 6 months. I thought about quitting. But a more experienced nurse told me, it was all apart of growing up in the OR. And my manager said, you'll start feeling OK after a year, but then at year 2 it will start making sense and then after that, its all you !!!! So, stick with it, if you have that feeling!! Thats just my 2 cents!!!!

Thank you so much for your response. I have a question, how does everyone sign up for that 8 hour block? is a sheet put out and everyone selects their time spot? What about people who are not at work when the sheet comes out? or left for the day ? Is there a mad rush to the signup sheet to get spots, then everyone who is not there gets leftovers? Sorry about the thousands of questions..... Thanks again for responding

How does your OR assign call for coverage ? Is it done equitably? Any suggestions or feedback is welcomed. If you think the way they do yours, please tell me how.... I'm looking for suggestions please

Boy, I can relate, it does take a special type of nurse to wok in the OR. The ability to not take things personally when te surgeon 'goes off'. I believe the hardest part of an OR is the beginning, when interacting with the different preceptors, because everyone does things their own way. What I can tell you is this, take what you learn from each person you precept with, do it their way while you're with them and when you are on your own, it becomes your practice and do it the way you see best as long as your priority is patient safety and following protocols. Adopt what you like and discard the rest, because when it comes down to it " its your practice and your license". Ps: in the OR you are going to encounter mean old biddies, young miserable ones, and kind mature nurses and sweet young ones, basically all types, just like you would find elsewhere. And make it a practice, while orienting, ask the preceptor at the end of the shift, what areas do you think I need to work on? Basically give them a feeling of being in charge.

Same as above, voluntary home early list. Or stock room cabinets, check on case carts for next day, or if you are in a smaller hospital and you don't get to scrub, ask to scrub in on an ongoing case to learn.

Yes, we count them, especially on open cases.

It really does get better... I promise. We all make mistakes, even nurses who have been practicing for a long time. What matters is that you learn from your mistakes, and try not to repeat them. In my first year I worked as a Psych nurse along with another job ( trying to pay off nursing school debts;)) and I was the medication nurse and needed to pass meds scheduled for 2130, the nurse that was precepting me was busy because one of our patients had become combative and needed to be Baker Acted; so she was working on that. I started working on the med pass at 2100 and never finished until 2300; the patients were getting aggravated by the minute but the faster I tried to go the slower I got. Now I have been working at this facility now for about 1 year and it takes me a lot less time to do it...where I can get my patients to bed by 2200 ( but only sometimes). The point of the story is that even though some nurses may go fast and others slow... after you get more comfortable with the medications and patient recognition you will gradually increase in speed. Never sacrifice SPEED for QUALITY. Always remember it is your license on the line..... So, keep your chin up, thank your hubby for sticking with you and it will get better.

WOw.... that experience was horrendous... and right now I am almost in the same position , except I got lucky and got a PRN job in Psych, which is helping to keep our lives afloat for now... but all I can tell you is pray... pray pray... Becuase that is what I have to be doing to hope to find a job. ANd I will pray for you as well!!!

I understand the way you feel. I am in my last semester of school and I am shopping for NCLEX REVIEW books,and I have a SAUNDERS (which came highly recommended), a lippincotts,and an NCLEX CRAM; also for my school we use the HESI book. Hopefully we can get some more insight into the bestbooks to use. Somewhere, I also use for reviews is Amazon,and read the reviews on the books.