sm9796

I had to unscrub and sit down a couple of times during C-sections and I remember thinking "how am I ever going to be able to work here if this keeps happening?!" It only happened twice, you just get used to it. Most important thing is that if you're scrubbed and you start to feel faint, say something straight away and STEP AWAY from the sterile field. We had an intern scrubbed for a lap chole. She had her fingers in the handles of the graspers and was starting to lean forward. The surgeon mentioned something about bad posture. The circulating nurse was on the ball and made her let go of the graspers and step back, just before she collapsed on the floor. I can't imagine what would have happened to the patient is she had fallen forwards or backwards with her fingers still in the handles of the graspers

I think it would be a sad day to see an OR without an RN. RNs are more patient focused. We're patient advocates, we're the ones that speak up and protect the patient when necessary. We see 'the whole picture'. On another note, in Victoria, Australia we don't have many anaesthetic techs and no Nurse anaesthetist (that I'm aware of). I think the anaesthetists would fight the decision to have nurse anaesthetists, however it's been done in other countries so who's to say it won't happen here.

We have a criteria that the patients should meet and then we discharge them when we feel it's safe/appropriate etc. No note from the anaesthetist. Seems a bit like it's more of a legal issue.

We recover all C-section patients. They get operated on in our OR, L&D don't have their own theatre. It doesn't really seem safe to recover a GA patient away from PACU. What if they go into laryngospasm and experienced help is much further away.

For our PACU: joint patients ICU patients bariatric, etc The problem is that there aren't always beds available on the wards, so even if a pt is meant to be on a bed they may be left on a gurney in PACU for several hours until a bed becomes available. If it's a more minor procedure and they pt can easily transfer to the ward bed once they get there (eg wrist ORIF) then we don't worry too much about getting their bed up from the ward

I wear crocs (the ones with holes) they're comfy, very light, and easy to clean. I think I need shoes with more support, perhaps birkinstocks. I don't think we have the other brands mentioned in Aus, and I'd prefer to try the shoes on before buying them.

found this thread in a search. I know it's a bit of an oldie, but I found it very helpful. A couple of questions about zeroing. How often do I need to re-zero? Should I re-zero when the patient is transferred to PACU from the OR? And also after I use the line to take bloods? Thanks in advance :)

One of the scrub teams had an incorrect count this week. They found the sponge (or raytec as we call it in Aus) in the set up room. This sparked a discussion in the tearoom about places we'd lost and found sponges. Some of the places mentioned were under shoes, under dishes, inside quivers (cylindrical container used to hold diathermy pencils, lap graspers, etc). Where have you lost and found a sponge or other countable item?