Transitioning from peds to adults - very nervous!

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Specializes in Pediatric and Adult OR.

Hi all - I will soon be starting a new OR job at an adult hospital. I have never worked with adults in the OR. I have only had OR experience in pediatrics (the last two years), though I have worked with adults in med/surg before. I'm really nervous about it! Mostly I'm nervous about positioning (we don't get a lot of adult sized children, and even if we do, we don't do a lot of surgeries that require funky positioning, like lithotomy, jacknife, etc). And then cases like total joints or whatever. I hate ortho as it is, I can't imagine doing it with adults. So much STUFF. Big stuff. HEAVY stuff. It sounds like they're kind of going to let me find my niche in the OR since I'm pretty flexible and CAN do most things (scrubbing and circulating any service, except scrubbing spines or cardiothoracic since they have their own teams), so hopefully I can avoid ortho, but no promises. I know there are people that love it so hopefully there won't be a need for me there.

I guess I'll learn as I go, but any advice at all about someone going from working with babies to working with adults (the population is mostly men over 50 - I bet it will be TURP central!) in the OR? Thanks!

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