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O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | M A R C H 2 0 1 5
New Eyes in the OR
What you learn when you're teaching.
S
ome of the best days I've had in surgical nursing were those when I
shepherded a new hire into the flock. For me, being asked to precept a
new OR nurse is an honor. I literally can't tell them everything they
need to know fast enough. It gushes out of me like water from a break in a dam.
It can also be stressful. Your shadow is looking to you as the authority, the
source of all knowledge. Above all, introducing a new nurse to surgery makes it
possible to see the job I've been in for so long with new
eyes. You may think you know nursing, but teaching will
teach you a thing or two. Such as:
Our process is not always intuitive
So there you are, trying to manage the routinely hectic
circus of preparing to transport a patient to sur-
gery. You're conducting an interview, confirm-
ing consent, flagging down the pre-op nurse
for a signature and pulling a bouffant over the
patient's hair. If the patient doesn't have a sudden
nervous urge to hit the head, you might just make
that ridiculous 20-minute turnover time.
You're showing the ropes to a nurse who's just
transferred to the OR from the Med Surg unit. You're
moving right along, when all of a sudden your charge
spots a skin anomaly. Everything screeches to a halt as
she calls an all-points-bulletin for a dressing to cover it.
Of course you were going to address the wound —
once you got the patient on the OR table. You see all
kinds of things while you're positioning and sticking
pads on everywhere. Plus, once you're in the OR, there'll
B E H I N D C L O S E D D O O R S
Paula Watkins, RN, CNOR
z NEW NURSE Remember, every
OR nurse has to start somewhere.
