affurman

If my director, who hopefully is/was an OR nurse, was questioning the reasons the circulator needed to see a patient in preop....I would RUN away from that place as fast as my legs could take me. There are safer ways to get TOTs lessened.

Yes. Someone at another facility had put the pad on the back of a knee that had been replaced. It was a horrible mess. Burn was the size of the pad and required several more surgeries to fix. I was in on two of the four or five the patient had. It was ugly.

As an OR charge who regularly sits in on interviews, I would rather have a new grad because you are a clean slate. I don’t care a bit about extra curricular activities or your GPA (I only say that because apparently a good number of schools are teaching to put it on the resume). If it really worries you, volunteer at health fairs doing vitals or at a free clinic in your area, or even at a Covid vaccine site as a watcher for reactions.It’ll get you some experience with patients and give you some good skills practice. If you care about what you learn, you have a positive attitude and you care about your patients, I can teach you everything else in time. The only thing you really need to know ahead of time is that it takes a team to have successful outcome for the patient and at the end of the day, that patient is all that matters. Good luck in the remainder of school and landing a job, the OR can be a wonderful place to start a career.

I don't think I've ever read anything as true as this post. It made me laugh a little and think a lot. Well put on all fronts.

Hi friends, Moderator, please move if not in the right place. I'm a veteran and a seasoned OR RN looking to go to work for the DOD in a base hospital. I'm looking for DOD civilian RNs to help me with the pros and cons of such a job. I some ideas about pay and how the retirement system works. I would like information on how the work environment is, especially about Camp Lejuene, Walter Reed and Ft. Belvoir. Secondly, I will be starting work towards an MSN and FNP this year. Location is not an issue for school. Would it be worth waiting until the MSN is done or try to get in the system now? Thank you for any insight.

If you can get a copy, Alexander's Care of the Patient in Surgery and AORN's Guidelines would be the books I would recommend. I wouldn't get either of them if they cost a lot, your facility should have a copy of each for you to use.

Nocturnallife: The system won't let me send you a message. Here is the abridged version: Are Cardiac, vascular, general and urology the only ones you would have to learn? What about ortho, neuro, plastics, GYN, eyes or anything else? If you have to learn cardiac, vascular, general and urology, six months would be challenging but, I think, doable with the right mentor team. My orientation was almost a year. I started in April of 2015, did the didactic (AORN Periop 101 course) until August. We were in the classroom three days a week, in the OR for two, after the first month. Then we went through each service line (General, Retinal/GYN/Podiatry, Neuro/ENT, Urology/Plastics, Ortho, and Cardiac/Vascular) for 3-4 weeks. We then got placed in our home specialty and reoriented to them for another 4 weeks. We were originally supposed to circulate for two weeks and scrub for two weeks but that became 3/1 shortly afterwards in all the service lines save Cardiac/Vascular.

Even though it's only one service line, three months orientation time for someone new to the OR setting is pretty short. I went through Periop 101 and with our service line rotations, it was 9 months. Even after that, I wasn't really comfortable for several more months of being on my own. I think you should really look into going to the hospital so you can learn the other service lines as well. You may go to circulate in Ortho and find its not for you. If you don't have the training for the other service lines, you may be stuck and miserable.

I may be a little late to comment on this one but I've been in the OR for just over two years now, I had about 6 months of med-surg experience when I got the job. I don't feel that the med-surg experience really helped me to get the job or helps me in my every day duties now. In the last two years, I've seen more new grads do well and blossom into great Periop Nurses than experienced floor RNs. It really depends on you and what you want to do. I really struggled with being on a med-surg unit and was extremely unhappy. I'm very much more comfortable and happy with my hat and mask on.

After doing a fair bit of research and talking to several schools in the state, I have found that there are questions about the transferability/accreditation of Sentara's BSN. UVA, JMU, EMU and ODU have all said that they will not recognize Sentara's BSN for admission to any graduate programs. Has anyone experienced this problem? Has anyone sucessfully transfered it to any other school for a graduate program?