sukisocks

Wow good or bad we have a lot to answer for don't we? As professionals within the OR we perform as we ourselves have been taught. It's an area for prima donnas and ass lickers (same thing) I was bullied and hurt by Sister's who just wanted to assert themselves but were laughed at by surgeons because of their incompetence. How do we as practitioners want to train newbies? certainly not the way I was introduced! What worries me is that newly qualified nurses expect to be experinced too soon. They 'suffer' inadequacy etc when wanting to move on. To my mind experience is in continuity same mentor different setting though we (as mentors) do not sing from the same hymm sheet. We have all been taught differently. The basics such as gowning gloving and policy sterility should be the fore runner and mandetory. Experience from the mentor goes a long way in training. To my mind this can take up to 2 years to become a competent practitioner and developing ones own personal preferance. I took 12 months out of Theatre to do my midwifery, in that sphere they had Midwife Supervisors. Nothing to do with management but were there as support for new and experienced midwives to call upon, support and evaluated practice. Theatre has the preceptorship but who evaluates mentors or tainees? The Midwife supervisors were elected by their peers no grades are imposed? Shouldn't this be the same for Theatre?

No, cell savers are only used for cold orthopaedics and only used in knee replacement surgery. All whole blood products and ffp's come directly from transfusion, one heck of a cost considering we could use 60+ units and 10 of ffp's during one case.

Hot AAA's give me a buzz, total chaos getting the person in , asleep, and then its our turn to open up, suction and clamp and then calm. Brilliant. I had one particular case and I'd used 140+ of 18" x 18" packs, bloodloss 12 litres in suction and still alive.In fact once the graft went in and haemostasis was checked we de- scrubbed and went for a cuppa for half an hour. We left him with the anaesthetic team of course! The human body is incredible!!! On a more sedate level I enjoy opthalamic's, C-Sections are okay as I suppose the rest of the specialities. Trauma you can fly by the seat of your pants, not my cup of tea but I do it (well I hope).

I am not sure what the directive are for ODP's but as scrub in charge of the case I will always start from zero and increase appropriately. The surgeon may have his own idea but always start one below at least, you can always increase. In opthalamic surgery always begin at zero thats my motto and its safer.

Thank you carcha, PR exercise does not wash with me either. We do not get support from other departments when we are in crisis because of the nature of OR even from ICU. My obligations are to people needing us Now. I know my role, as does every nurse in every department, if I am 1/4 mile away transferring a patient and I get a crash C-Section I can't dump my transfer and go can I? The reason we were volunteered was to gain brownie points, not for the benefit of the patients we receive into our care

learn to walk before you run. We have several new scrub staff who are in the same boat. Your mentor should start with the smaller sets, checking the instruments before during and after procedure does help as well as setting them out and what their role is. Don't feel daunted no one would expect you to scrub for a large case until you are competent and comfortable to move on. If you learn fast Great, if it takes a while thats fine. Every area has different instruments, its best to start in General Surgery or Gynae or Day Care. have continued support until you are comfortable to go solo. Good practice comes from Good Mentors, if you are unhappy about things speak up, they can't mind read. Good Luck and Welcome to OR

I work rotational night in Theatre. After midnight the department is on call for trauma, C-Sections and vascular. We have now been told that fron 4 am to 7 am we must be available to transfer A&E patients to various wards and sites in the hospital. We (the nurses) feel wholly against this due to the nature of our call and the transfer of patients we have no prior dealings with. We have taken this to the union and they said we can't refuse. On the other hand the Night Sister in charge of the Acute Wards has refused to do A&E Tranfers????? She does however do transfers from Recovery in Theatre. I am really concerned over this and have voiced these concerns to the Senior Manager who has no evidence to support the decision or oppose it. The only directive we have for this is through a memo sent to Senior Staff and this has been passed down from there. The transfer calls have taken place for the last few weeks. One member of staff did go to transfer a patient and found A&E Staff booking holidays on the internet in the office on arrival in the department.............????? Has anyone out there got any helpful suggestions on how we can resolve this:confused:

I have been reading this thread with great interest. I am an OR RN in the United Kingdom with 5 years experience, I have converted your pay scales to sterling and am amazed. I work for the NHS and am payed the following in dollars $14.49 p/hr basic o/c is $3.75 p/hr (slightly better here!) I average one on call a week for general/ trauma and possibly 2 calls for opthalamic cover. One thought struck me do you guys scrub for cases over there and do you rotate areas, say general to orthopaedic to ENT etc Sukisocks