poopsiebear

I took the CNOR exam in 12/07 and the exam wasn't bad at all. You definitely need to read the AORN Standards, Alexander's, and Berry and Kohn's texts. I printed the Study Guide from the CNOR Certification website for reference, and I took a review c...

Positioning for a prostatectomy is definitely a team effort. We usually use 5 pieces of eggcrate foam for each case. We completely wrap each arm with foam from axilla to 2-3 inches pass the fingers and secure it with 3 pieces of tape. We put a sma...

We have the robot for 3+ years and we use it everyday in either urology or thoracic service. We average about 10 cases a week. In Urology, we do mostly prostatectomies and some pyeloplasties. Our 1st robotic prostatectomy took over 8 hours, now we ...

We do have a designated staff for the robot because there's a lot of technical things to learn. The staff needs to know where to place the console, robot and the monitors depending on what procedure you are doing. Our OR has 13 rooms and we have 6 ...

I considered traveling nursing a while back and learned a lot from nurses who are traveling from this website: http://forums.delphiforums.com/travelnurses Good luck!

I've been doing robotic cases for 1 1/2 years and it's been a great learning experience. We mainly do urology and thoracic cases with the robot and it's a lot to set up for those cases. I do mostly thoracic cases and if there was a robotic prostate...

I've been in the OR for 5 years and had 2 boys since then. Like MissJoRN said, OR is physically demanding, but it certainly is doable. I am not trying to scare you, but I have only known a handful of nurses who carried their pregnancies to their du...

Where I work, our preference card is our charge sheet, and the preference list comes up with each case cart. It makes it easy for those who pick for the case and those who are in the room to know exactly what each surgeon wants. We also have a desi...

I'm working in a for-profit hospital and we are now saving the "octopus" and "starfish" after each off-pump CABG to be sent back to the manufacturer to be re-sterilized. How common is this practice? Personally, I think it's disgusting. The devices...

How do you guys deal with pagers/cell phones in the OR? Our residents/fellows used to have pagers and it's in our unwritten policy manual to answer their pagers for them. Fine, I can deal with that. Recently, our hospital converted the pagers to c...

I was pregnant 2 years ago with my son and I didn't have problems working in the OR. My manager was accommodating in putting me in non-flouro rooms and I was assigned 1st or 2nd lunch instead of 3rd or 4th lunch. The tough part for me during my pre...

WOW! That's a high number of nurses witnessing wrong site surgery. At my hospital, we have to do a "time out" before each surgery. Usually the surgeon states the patient's name, type of procedure and site of procedure prior to incision. I have he...

I work in a level 1 trauma hospital and we have 2 RNs and 2 techs scheduled to work every night. On top of that, we usually have 2 RNs, 2 techs, 1 heart and 1 liver on call every night.

The study guideline is on the certification website. I posted the link for you. http://www.certboard.org/cnor/cert/study_group_curr.htm

Try http:http://www.scrubcaps4u.com There's a wide selection of choices and the prices are reasonable. This seller makes the scrub hats for the show "Scrubs" and she posted a few pictures of the cast on the website. The seller accepts PayPal and w...

I work in a teaching hospital in Philly, and the heart nurses/scrubs get paid $2 and hour for call and 1 1/2 when they get called in. We have enough heart RNs and scrubs that they take call about once every 10 days. However, when they are on call o...

I don't understand why the hospital has decided to replace beepers with cell phones. I know cell phones are not allowed to be used in the ICUs, but it's OK in the OR? It doesn't make any sense. We don't have a place for the docs to leave their page...

I work in a level 1 trauma center and we are staffed 24/day. Here's how we are staffed: Mon-Fri: Nurses generally work 8,10 or 12 hour shifts (7a-3p, 7a-5p, 7a-7p, 11a-11p, 3p-11p and 11p-7a). Techs work mainly 10 hour shifts (7a-5p). There's also ...

My worst mistake ... I work in the OR and occasionally, our patients have local anesthesia for their procedures. I made the mistake of not posting the "Patient is awake" sign on the door while the patient is having a bilateral orchiectomy. One of ...

I work in a big teaching hospital, and I know at least 6 techs I work with who are going to nursing school right now. If OR is where you want to be, it will be great for you start out as a tech if you can't get into nursing school right now. Most h...

I have 2 of her books (Panic and Intensive Care) and I'm willing to sell them to you at a low cost. Both books are in good condition.

I work in a 700+ beds teaching hospital in Philly. I've been an RN for 6 years and my base rate is $29.15/hour. Evening shift gets 10% differential and night shifts get 15% differential. Call is $2/hr. Whenever we are called in, we automatically g...

I have much respect for PACU nurses and I know it is a very challenging unit. I chose the OR because I love working there and I can tell you love working in the PACU also. It's unfortunate a lot of nurses from other units have no clue what we do. ...

We have different level calls at my hospital . If I am 1st call, I need to be ready in 30 minutes after I get called in. If I am 2nd call, I get 45 minutes. We also have heart and liver calls and their time frames are a little different, depending...

i definately feel like a scout on the days when i'm trying to track down the pans i hide for later cases that someone else has found and stolen back for their cases. but then that's part of the fun of the or, who is the smartest at finding and hidin...