GarretSTL

I would like to survey O.R. nurses from all around the country and see who does and does not get "rest pay" or compensation for working overnight on call. For example, the first O.R. I worked in offered a guaranteed 8 hours away from the hospital. Thus, if we worked until 12:30 in the morning or came in on call and worked until 4 am we would get a guarantee of 8 hours off (8:30 am and 12 noon, respectively), all of which would be paid starting from what our normal start time (6:30) was. At the hospital I work at now there is no compensation whatsoever. So last night I worked until 8:30 pm and then got called back at 1:30 am and worked until 4:30 am. Now I will be expected to work my regular shift that starts at 6:30. They will do what they can to get me out early today but when I leave I won't get paid for any lost hours. Please weigh in on this and let me know what your facility does in these situations.

I work in Cardio-Thoracic and noticed something the other day that I had never paid attention to before. After our RNFA harvests the conduit or the surgeon harvests the Mammary artery, they feel that they are "contaminated" and thus they change their gowns. However, many of them do not re-scrub or use Avaguard. They just remove the gown, throw it away, keep their hands above the waist level, and re-gown. My question is if this is even possible to do without a re-scrub. I looked through an AORN book at work an found nothing. The Google searches have led me down similar paths. To me it seems like it is impossible since nothing touching the inside of your gown is sterile, thus removing it over your arms and hands would be considered contaminated. I would love to hear anyone's opinion or a link to any official explanation.

I was told during my O.R. internship to go to the floor first and I'm very glad that I did. It helped me solidify my nursing and interpersonal skills, as well as learn a lot of anatomy, medications, etc. However, in your situation, it does become more complicated. How much money would you have to pay back? In the end you need to do what is best for YOU and what will make YOU happy. However, you want to be careful of burning bridges and not being able to go back to that hospital later. Is it a large hospital/hospital system or a small independent place? Also, the transition into the O.R. is sometimes very difficult. I went straight into hearts and had a lot of miserable days and times where I dreaded going into work. In the end the O.R. can be an awesome place.

I am a 25 year old Cardio-Thoracic OR nurse right now and have been at my hospital since August 2011. We are a very busy program for our area, doing about 700 heart cases and 400 thoracic cases a year. However, other than an internship and a brief training period I haven't done anything other than hearts and lungs. I have now been approached by some nurses at another hospital about a position there. It is a smaller hospital where they don't do hearts but the nurses do everything else. That is, they are not so large that they are podded. I am wondering if this would be a good transition. I would get a well rounded O.R. experience, it would not require extensive amounts of call and overtime, the people and stress level might be better, and it is a lot closer to home. I do not want to be stuck in a circulator/scrubber role my whole career, which is kind of the direction hearts can take you. I am hoping that getting experience in a wide variety of surgery would prepare me to someday become an RNFA, O.R. manager, or even a sales rep. Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated!

I work on the Cardio-Thoracic OR team and we are separate from the "main" OR in that we do not do anything except heart and lung surgery. However, our base pay is the same as everyone else. There have been grumblings lately about trying to get a differential for our team based on the critical nature of our patients, our higher amount of call time, etc. I was wondering if other hospitals across the country pay more for nurses on the heart team. Any input would be much appreciated as I hear these discussions strengthen at our hospital.

It's normal to be nervous, as its a really big step in life! My biggest suggestion is that you use the knowledge and skills you have from school, but to also ask a lot of questions and use your fellow staff members. When I first started I made sure I asked a LOT of questions, even if I thought I already knew something. One of the biggest mistakes a new RN can make is trying to do more than they are comfortable with. The older RNs will help you get through the initial stage, thats what we are here for. :)