them for difficult situations they may face or conversations they'll
likely have in the OR. I do this through role-playing sessions, where 2
people will act out a workplace scenario with one person being the
aggressor and the other being the reactor. I find real-life stories, exam-
ples and scenarios work best; the more detail, the better.
I base the scenarios on actual occurrences, such as the older nurse
who purposely broke equipment so that when the new hire went to
use it, it wouldn't work and the doctor would yell at her; or the vindic-
tive nurse who gave the young nurse the wrong directions to locate
the instrument tray.
With your veteran staff, it's more about raising awareness — some-
thing that's especially important if you've recently added younger,
more inexperienced staff or if your facility has some type of fellow-
ship program for new RNs. Experienced nurses tend to forget what
it's like when you're just starting out in the OR. This is an opportunity
to remind them and to highlight common generation differences.
Provide practical tools. For more
experienced staff, education is often the
best way to describe generational differences.
For your younger, more inexperienced staff,
however, you may have to take it a step further.
After my education sessions with novice nurses, I
do a debrief on what happened during those
role-playing scenarios. Then, we go over
some de-escalation techniques they can
use during difficult situations. It's all about
giving these nurses practical tools they
3
• NOVICE NURSES Prepare your Millennial and Gen-Xer nurses for the
difficult situations they might face in the OR.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 2 5
