Skills you don't miss from floor nursing to OR

Specialties Operating Room

Published

Hi everyone, just reading through some posts and I am happy with how many people who have entered the OR have found their passion and really do love their job. It has me thinking about how different floors and specialites require their own skill set and also have their own daily routine practises.

For all you OR nurses out there, I am curious in knowing what skills that you used to do a lot on the floor, that you aren't doing on a daily basis (or never again!) in the OR.

As well, probably for all the OR nurses who entered OR nursing with little floor nursing expereince, what nursing skills have you never preformed that may surprise other nurses?

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Specializes in OR and Midwifery.

I don't miss showering patients. I'd alway end up just as wet as them! Then spend the rest of the shift with soggy socks. I still work in obstetrics as well as the OR but mothers tend to shower them selfs :)

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Specializes in Only the O.R. and proud of it!.

I've never been a floor nurse!

I have bathed patients. We've had patients from the floors in great need of a bath (floors never have the time, I suppose). So, I'll bathe a patient if there is time. Also, I had a developmentally challenged patient who was deathly afraid of water. I took the time to scrub him head to toe before a cysto.

I am glad that I've never done the following:

Drop an NG tube (SWALLOW IT!!).

Have more that one patient at a time.

Covered my own 8 patients and a co-workers 8 patients while they were on lunch.

Run a code with no one else who knows what's going on.

Passed oral meds.

Deal with crazy patients for hours at a time. (after 10 minutes, they're asleep)

Deal with crazy family members.

Walked in on my patient getting or giving (or both) a conjugal visit.

Deal with a patient with acute chest pain or dysphasia onset and still have to care for other patients.

Gee... I've gotten a brain freeze. What else crap do floor nurses have to put up with?

Sent from my iPad (so excuse any typos and autocorrects!!) using allnurses.com

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I worked in ICU for 2 years and I miss assessments and titrating drips.

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Specializes in med-surg.

I miss not being under a microscope. I miss getting to know my patients. I miss starting IV's.

I don't miss crazy family members. I don't miss getting to know my patients. I'm glad the anesthesiologist is there to start the IV's.

My point is: Nothing is perfect. The grass is never greener. You just have to find where you fit.

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Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

I miss using my steth, reading x-rays for post op line placement verification, interpreting EKGs, drawing up and administering meds, creating a bond with pts, discharge teaching, starting IVs, running codes, giving blood, tracking I&Os (I know, crazy, eh?) and having some autonomy.

Although I miss these things, I would find it difficult to go back to PACU or the floor. I am totally in love with surgery. It isn't every day that you can hold a beating heart in your hand, see what cancer looks like on the liver, see firsthand what smoking does to your lungs (I once had a pt who was only 32, smoked 2 packs a day for 12 years and he had pebble sized black spots all over his lungs.), or take out a ruptured spleen. It is truly amazing.

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