Why do you want to become an OR nurse?

Specialties Operating Room

Published

I am a graduate nurse and I am still looking for a job. I love OR because I can have all of my attention to one patient at one time. Plus it provides a unique opportunity to work with surgeon. I feel like i am one step closer to understand how each organ functions by being in the operating room. What else...? I am applying for a GN internship program and have to write an essay to tell them why i want to be an OR nurse. I dont know where to start. I really want this job and hope to write an impressive essay to get this position... Any idea would help.... thank you

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Before you sign up for the internship I would suggest shadowing an OR nurse. I was a NICU nurse for seven years before I started a periop. 101 course at the same hospital. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Don't get me wrong, I love my job now but it isn't for everyone. A lot of the new grads have dropped out and even some of the experienced RNs. We have done 4 classes with 18 total nurses and half are gone within 3 months to two years. They are going to want to know that you understand the role of the circulating nurse. The role of the circulator first and foremost is to be the patients advocate. You speak for the patient when they are not able to. You will set up the OR with equipment/correct bed, set up the sterile field with the scrub person and count the instruments/sponges/etc., you will run around like your hair is on fire when you realize that they did not send the correct trays of instruments, you will also tweek the room with the surgeons "preferences" or whims in regards to every possible thing (temperature, music, where the draw sheet is on the bed, instruments), then when you only have 30 seconds before the case starts you will go see the pt. You will do a pre-op interview, check the chart, sign consents that you are legally responsible for, give pre-op antibiotics within the allotted time, all while anesthesiologist is trying to push the stretcher down the hall because you are taking to long. Oh yeah and most of the time you don't have the paperwork you need to legally go to the room but you will catch hell if you point out to the surgeon that he/she needs to sign this or that. Then you get to the room and help the patient to the OR table and assist anesthesiologist with induction and intubation. Then positioning ( which can take more than an hour and sometimes you will actually TAPE the patient to the OR table), prepping, and draping. You plug in the equipment/suction/bovie and do a time out simultaneously while delivering fluids and meds to the sterile field and anything else that was forgotten. You will finally sit down to start a mountain of paperwork and will have to run for a suture or scratch someone's nose. When procedure is done you will assist with dressings, extubation, and transfer to PACU. Now you have one half hour from the time the wheels of the stretcher leave the room to the new patient arrives to do it all again!

I know this is a long and oversimplified description of a circulators job! I should mention that I love my job and the OR is a funny, crazy, silly, infuriating, frustrating place to work. But once your in your in and you will be a part of an amazing family. You are not just caring for one patient, you are taking care of the surgeon, scrub, anesthesia, and thinking about the next ten cases all at once. You are constantly assessing and evaluating. Some people say we are glorified gophers but they are not doing their jobs correctly.

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Include somewhere in your essay that you enjoy the team environment of the Operating Room. That you enjoy learning hands on. Tell them some exposure you have with the Operating room.

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Oh yeah and most of the time you don't have the paperwork you need to legally go to the room but you will catch hell if you point out to the surgeon that he/she needs to sign this or that. .

Sounds like some doctors need to be reported. My patients do not go back unless their consents are signed as well as H&P complete and signed. The doctors know it's my job to make sure it's done BEFORE the patient is considered ready.

For the essay you might want to mention that you like the technical aspects of nursing. My first manager seemed to like that.

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Include somewhere in your essay that you enjoy the team environment of the Operating Room. That you enjoy learning hands on. Tell them some exposure you have with the Operating room.

Agreed! The word teamwork should play prominently in such an essay. It is not that teamwork doesn't play a part in every nurse's job, it is just more direct in the OR. You also have the widest exposure to multiple system and structural pathologies of any nurse. Express an interest in anatomy. Perhaps suggest that you don't do well with delayed gratification and like the immediate results of surgical patients.

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I have been an LVN for 14 years on the floor of a hospital. I am getting tired of it. Floor work is getting bad and I believe it is going to get worse. The only areas I have been interested are Recovery, and ER. I loved the OR when I did my rotation in school. I am trying to finish my RN , Once done I hope to get into an OR program.

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I decided to be in the OR because I knew that it would be easy to find a position. As long as I am a nurse I am happy because I like helping people. I am actually moving at the end of the year from the ATL to Baltimore MD and I already accepted an offer at a Surgery center just outside of B-more. So now my commute has decreased also the surgi-center is an outpatient facility and I believe that I will like it because they average 10-14 procedures a day so I know that I will stay busy. Also it doesnt hurt that I no longer have to work Nights, Weekends or holidays. Plus the nurses only work 10 hour shifts, four days a week so that gives me a lot of time to spend with my Husband and step-kids.

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Just got accepted into an OR program for experienced RNs. We have to arrive 30 min before our cases start for the day, is this the norm?

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Just got accepted into an OR program for experienced RNs. We have to arrive 30 min before our cases start for the day, is this the norm?

That's how it is in my OR, although we have set shifts. So if we start work at 0700, the first patient of the day is usually scheduled to be in the OR at 0730. There may be rooms that start a little later (like 0800 for the post-call surgeons) but we still show up at 0700.

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Specializes in Operating room Scrubbing, Anesthetics,.

I used to work in busy trauma hospital, now in smaller hospital with only cold cases. I love the fact that in OR I constantly have to think on my feet, innovate, anticipate and be one step ahead of anything that can happen. Adrenaline junkie through and through. I love the fact that I can become so comfortable with a surgeon or anesthetist that I can anticipate needs before they even ask for something. Standing next to a table with an abdomen open and a surgeon up to his elbows trying to tie of a bleeder, and he knows he can trust me to just put out his hand and I will have the next instrument there, is quite a thrill. And knowing that I am an integral part in ensuring the patients survival. Love it!

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Specializes in Operating room..

I became a nurse to work in the OR and I still love everything about the OR! If you know you want it go for it!

"MereSanity" RN, BSN, CNOR

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Thanks so much Suckulator. I have such a better understanding. Appreciate your honesty.

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