Transplant Team in your OR?

Editorial Team / Admin · Apr 9, 2015

We don't perform transplants at my facility, but we do organ procurements. There is not a specialty team for this; it's just either the people who are working or the team on call, depending on timing. The closest we would have as far as a team taking specialty call is our cardiothoracic team. We do take a lot more call than the rest of the OR, but we do not receive any additional compensation.

TXPediORRN · Apr 10, 2015

Thanks for your response. Several years ago our director of transplant surgery lobbied for a dedicated OR team. I think we're in the minority.

Foggy14 · Apr 10, 2015

We do kidney transplants occasionally where I work in peds. If it's a living donor and the case is during the day, they just assign the staff that know how to do it and we don't get paid any differently. If it's at night we can usually bargain for call pay (time and a half). We don't take separate call, though...they just start calling people on "the list." Our manager has brought up having a call team, though, so this may change.

TXPediORRN · Apr 11, 2015

We do kidney transplants occasionally where I work in peds. If it's a living donor and the case is during the day, they just assign the staff that know how to do it and we don't get paid any differently. If it's at night we can usually bargain for call pay (time and a half). We don't take separate call, though...they just start calling people on "the list." Our manager has brought up having a call team, though, so this may change.

Thanks for responding. I'm surprised there aren't more places with a dedicated team. We're a busy transplant center and lately, it's gotten crazy busy.

Foggy14 · Apr 12, 2015

Yeah...I think we just don't have the volume to have a dedicated call team since we only get around 4-5 transplants per year. It would just complicate the existing call schedule and be a real pain to get rid of for vacations, etc. It seems to work out that we have enough notice to round up a team when we get a case.

TXPediORRN · Apr 12, 2015

Yeah...I think we just don't have the volume to have a dedicated call team since we only get around 4-5 transplants per year. It would just complicate the existing call schedule and be a real pain to get rid of for vacations, etc. It seems to work out that we have enough notice to round up a team when we get a case.

Ours runs very smoothly actually. We have four RNs and four STs covering liver and kidney. Last year we did 35 livers and 15 kidneys. We sign up for call about six weeks out and it gets covered. Our team works together very well and steps up to help each other out. Our surgeon is proposing incentive pay for us so I was hoping other transplant centers would chime in.

klangelo · Apr 12, 2015

I would say we are a major transplant center in our area. We have a dedicated liver team and they take their own call and don't do the main OR call. They will do these cases if one happens during the day otherwise they do their regular specialty cases (some are vascular techs, thoracic techs, general surgery nurses or techs).

Anyone in the OR can scrub a kidney transplant.. However they obviously prefer someone that knows what they are doing. Also, technically anyone can scrub a single lung transplant too.

Cardiac team members are the only ones that can do a heart transplant or double lung transplant and they take their own cardiac call.

And no. They are not compensated any differently. They tend to take more call actually-- and for longer periods at a time compared to the main OR call requirements.

TXPediORRN · Apr 12, 2015

I would say we are a major transplant center in our area. We have a dedicated liver team and they take their own call and don't do the main OR call. They will do these cases if one happens during the day otherwise they do their regular specialty cases (some are vascular techs, thoracic techs, general surgery nurses or techs).
Anyone in the OR can scrub a kidney transplant.. However they obviously prefer someone that knows what they are doing. Also, technically anyone can scrub a single lung transplant too.
Cardiac team members are the only ones that can do a heart transplant or double lung transplant and they take their own cardiac call.
And no. They are not compensated any differently. They tend to take more call actually-- and for longer periods at a time compared to the main OR call requirements.

Thanks for the response. We started out taking only liver call and it was this way for many years. Only recently have we picked up kidneys for the precise reason you stated. The surgeon that does them likes her team :)

LAM2010, BSN · Apr 15, 2015

We don't have a dedicated transplant (kidney) team where we are (the VA). There is a specialty team for urology, but the on-call crew who's assigned are the ones who do the transplants. :)

TraumaORnurse · Apr 20, 2015

We do kidney and pancreas transplants and do not have a dedicated team...we average 5 kidney transplants a month, pancreas is pretty rare and it's always in combination with a kidney. During the day the surgeons have their favorite GU scrubs that they always request. We are staffed 24/7 and everyone on our night and weekend shifts have been trained and are proficient in transplants so we don't need to have call staff.

TXPediORRN · Jul 16, 2015

We do kidney and pancreas transplants and do not have a dedicated team...we average 5 kidney transplants a month, pancreas is pretty rare and it's always in combination with a kidney. During the day the surgeons have their favorite GU scrubs that they always request. We are staffed 24/7 and everyone on our night and weekend shifts have been trained and are proficient in transplants so we don't need to have call staff.

Thank you for your reply. We're also staffed 24/7 with three teams and three days of the week it's covered by that staff. Out transplant team covers Thursday and Friday nights and all of Saturday and Sunday as well as holidays. Many years ago our surgeon wanted and got a dedicated team. We're like a little family. Even though staff is trained and capable, our group works very well together and things just go smoothly. They prefer their dedicated team and I don't blame them one bit. Our director has gotten input from other hospitals and I'm amazed at the incentives out there for other hospital's transplant teams. We're hoping to do something similar with our group. Thanks again for the response.