Recovery Room Nurse

[Catfish RN]

Hi,

I am hoping that someone will fill me in on the daily duties of a recovery room nurse.

I am an ICU nurse recovering from a back injury. I have been trying to find a position that won't require as much heavy lifting. I know Nicu,Peds, etc.. but those opportunities have not yet presented themselves. The timing is perfect for this recovery room position. How much do nurses lift in the recovery room (assuming there is not a lift team) ?

Thanks for you insight.

Cathi

[MU/WVUGRADRN]

Each facility will differ, but in my experience there were instances that I did have do some lifting of patients in the PACU. Remember patients are under the influence of anesthesia. You may have to lift the patient to change a pad or some linen under them. The biggest incidence of lifting a patient happened when I took them to their room and they had to be transferred from a stretcher to the bed. They often require much assistance; that may be hard on your back.

The positive: Operating rooms or PACU's have rollers and/or slippery sheets you can put the patient on to help with the move.

[azhiker96, BSN, RN]

I work as a tech in PACU and will graduate my ADN course this coming March. There are techs and other nurses to help with patient transfers. Most of the patients that we take to the floor transfer themselves from gurney to bed. If they can't then we use a "transfer board" and enlist help from the floor. One thing you might encounter is holding a patient down. About once or twice a week I get to wrestle with a patient who is waking up confused and trying to get off the gurney. One patient last week still had his airway in! Overall though I think you'll find less lifting there and lots of help available. Good luck!

[gooch951]

Hello all! Just reading up hear on these interesting topics and wondering if anyone can please advise me. I was currently offered a job in a plastic surgery clinic as a circulating and recovery nurse. i am interested and need a change. i have worked Med/Surge, Ortho/Neuro, and PCU for the last 3.5 years a an RN.

Any advice to what i may get myself into?

Thanks,

Liza

oops..i think i should start a new post with this one...sorry!:biggringi

[mustanggirl]

While it is true you won't be constantly lifting pts out of bed in PACU, there is a lot of lifting. You have to be able to respond to the confused pt and be able to quickly turn a patient to their side if they get nauseous. Unfortunaly this often happens so quickly that you don't always have someone to help you turn the patient and end up doing it yourself. Occassionally you will need to transfer patients from cart to bed, usually you have lots of help with that. There is a lot of transporting patients from the PACU to the floor in beds, although some hospitals have bed movers which are a wonderful thing.