CrazyBlondesRock

When I worked labor and delivery I didn't spend much time with the newborn. We were supposed to take the newborns to the newborn nursery for admission about 1 hour after delivery. As you can imagine the parents usually spent that hour admiring and showing their baby off. However, in the hospital where I did my senior practicum the L+D nurses did bed-side admissions and also worked pp and well-baby nursery, so they got to do a lot more with the infants. I have to admit as a L+D nurse, after the baby was out and transitioned and I said HI! I was ready for the next laboring mom. You could work in the well-baby nursery or NICU if you are really interested in babies.

I used to be an OB nurse and during orientation had a pt. throw a suspected AFE. We had to do a case study as new OB nurses and everyone was amazed by the labs and fetal heart monitor strips. I learned that when a laboring mom (or recently delivered mom) says she can't breathe don't automatically assume it is a panic attack brought on by 1000 people in the room and 2 doses of terb. Don't run the bed into a wall on the way to the OR. Don't be that surprised when the aforementioned mom turns blue on the way to the OR. Find someone who knows what do with the laps because I was neatly lining up 50+ laps and everyone was walking on them and the OR looked liked we had slaughtered a cow after it was all over. DIC is part of the normal sequence of events for an AFE and makes for a long operation (our pt was in DIC when she hit the table and it was hard to stop the bleeding). Profusely thank the ICU nurses that are coming down to take the pt. b/c I definately wasn't qualified for that pts care after losing 2500+ cc of blood, DIC, intubation.... Oh I gave the strips and case study to my college OB professor for her class - because I think it is so important to teach and learn and teach and learn.... Ok the only reason I can describe this case lightly is because it had a good outcome. Mom was intubated for a few days but had a full recovery and baby did good too. Wow a day (well actually night) in the life of an OB nurse!

I've been a labor and delivery nurse since I graduated in May, 2004, however; some political situations at my hospital arose and I decided to take a job elsewhere and give the OR a try (I've always been interesed in the OR, but really couldn't get much experience during nursing school. We couldn't do our senior practicum in the OR because it wasn't "hands on" nursing!). I'm excited about the OR and really think I'll like it (I know I've only had a limited experience in L+D), but I was wondering if there was some advice that you wish you had been given when you started? Our OR is separated into pods and they are planning on having me circulate ortho and do some neuro/ENT. I've been reading some old posts, which I guess have encouraged and scared the crap out of me. I keep reminding myself that dealing with some of our old OB/GYNs has made me "grow some balls (just a phrase I like - I'm a girl)" and I learned to do that well so I'll be okay. Looking for some encouragement and reality. Thanks...I enjoy reading the posts.

I used to work in a high-volume OB unit (around 600/month) and we used OB techs (I don't think they were certified scrub techs) as scrubs - we usually had 2-3 at night. When these OB techs weren't scrubbing they were doing blood glucose fingersticks, drawing labs, filing things in charts, getting supplies, during the day and occasionally at night they did bed baths, took pts to pp... I have to admit I did see them sitting around talking at night a lot, but there were some nights that the nurses got to do that to. Overall they were a joy to work with and made our jobs a lot easier. I've seen us do 17 sections in one day so it was definately cost effective to employ them as opposed to extra nurses. (When we go back on a section we have 1 RN circulator, 1 RN baby nurse, and 1 OB tech. With no OBT we would have to have 3 nurses readily available and sometimes we have trouble finding a baby nurse to go back for 15 or so minutes to do the baby!) Several of our nurses were former OB techs and if we were in a pinch they were usually eager to scrub or helped the scrub get stuff ready for crashes. There are a lot of things that techs can be trained to do that would be useful on an OB unit and I'm surprised that they aren't considered cost effective. Personally I always wanted to learn to scrub (that is why my new job is as an OR nurse!!), but I can't imagine why is should be a requirement of the job - especially in a place that does 680 c/s a year!

My hospital offers fellowships for new grad and new-to-LDR nurses in June and Jan. Definately make sure you will be getting a 1:1 orientation because most of us didn't get a lot of experience with LDR in nursing school (unless you got a senior practicum/preceptorship in nursing school). Good luck!!!

A 32 inch TV and a DVD player with surround sound - love watching movies!

Gompers is right that in OB/GYN (I'm in L & D) you spend most of your time working with moms. I can tell you that as a L+D nurse at most hospitals you will get a variety of different experiences: circulating (and sometimes scrubbing) in the OR, recovery, post-op, triage (because most ERs see that a woman is pregnant and I think immediately ship them to L+D), lady partsl deliveries, managing pts with high risk pregnancies....... And there are always more options in nursing. In nursing school I was crazy about OB and now I am thinking that I might like to try the OR someday. I would encourage you to job shadow, job shadow, job shadow - that way you get a feel for nursing and it will illustrate to the nursing school that you want to apply to that you are serious about your decision. Good Luck!!