Operating Room Nurse- A Fulfilling Career Path

As an operating room nurse, you have to provide specialized nursing services to critically ill and the mentally disturbed patients and promote physical and mental health within the medical treatment facility. The Operating Room nurse is basically responsible for assisting the doctors in preparing patients and in the operating rooms for surgery. It calls for preparation and maintaining of sterile medical supplies and helping with preoperative and postoperative procedures. You need to be prepared to treat emergency cases without getting perturbed and with a lot of patience. The patient's medical history needs to be examined along with his records while conducting basic duties like taking temperature, pulse and blood pressure.

There are plenty of options also available in the operating nurse career such circulating nurse in the operating room and anesthesia care nursing. Nurses who provide anesthesia have to have least two years of critical care experience and should have completed the course from a nurse anesthesia school for training. Circulating nurses are responsible for everyone in the operating room on any particular day. They are responsible as patient spokesman ensuring that the patient being operated on is the correct patient and that the doctor is performing the correct procedure.

Nurses have many career opportunities available to them when they complete an AOC qualifying course in operating room nursing or one year of supervised training in operating room nursing. The patients undergoing surgery come completely under the care of the nurses attending the operating theater. Their duties start with preparing and ensuring that the operating theater is ready for the operating procedures and seeing to it that all the equipments and special procedures that are to be done before any operation are all taken care off. Regular procedures and emergencies, if any. They are also responsible for all the equipments while the operation is under progress and they need to ensure all the necessary tools are kept ready depending on the operation that is to take place.

The OR Nurse also manages operating room activities like taking control of OR personnel and making sure they have completed their routine checks and given responsibilities, which could be anything from ensuring the equipments, are sterilized to keeping records and relevant documents updated. Other responsibilities include maintaining correct and complete records and reports, and helping with ongoing, in house training programs by continually updating already advanced knowledge and responsibilities of nursing personnel.

Operating room nurses, are also referred to as preoperative nurses, are usually qualified and registered nurses who work in co ordination with patients who are to be operated upon. In today's world, nursing jobs are in demand in hospitals, different types of clinics and surgical units that operate during the day. In hospitals, their work is to interact directly with patients before the operation during the operation and post the operation.

Plenty of nursing jobs are available in the world today. Scrub nurses duty is to hand the medical instruments to the operating doctor during surgery while the circulating nurse observes checks and monitors all the equipments during the operation and ensures that they run smoothly. The nurses whose duty is in the operating theater are responsible to ensure that the operating room is ready in all respects for the operating procedure. This would mean making sure, all the equipments are properly audited and the patient's record is recorded in detail. The consent form is to be filled by the concerned family before the operation begins.

The operating room nurses position in the operating theater is very crucial as the entire operating procedure depends on her efficiency and job knowledge as they almost operate as secondary physicians in all respects. Infact half the job like suturing the patients after the surgery and controlling the bleeding is an important part of a operating nurses job. These nurses play the role of mediators and need to keep the patients informed about the upcoming surgery and give them post surgical advice as well. Assisting them and changing the dressing when necessary. The Operating Room Nurse works under the direction of the Manager while carrying out nursing responsibilities and duties.

How to become an Operating Room Nurse...

From the outside, the world of the operating room nurse seems shrouded in gauze, masks, caps, gowns and scrubs. It is where nursing students tread with immense caution – each one of them hesitant to make a move for fear of contaminating a sterile field. However, seasoned OR nurses dance between operating theaters with grace and ease – a feat only achieved after years of practice and experience. What really lies behind the doors that say ‘Sterile’? What can nurses who want to join the Operating Room team look forward too? What does an operating room nurse really do and how can somebody become one.

What is Operating Room Nursing?

Operating Room Nursing, also known as perioperative nursing, is a specialized field of nursing practice. Nurse practitioners in this filed mainly practice their craft in Operating theaters. They work assisting surgeons, handing them the tools they need to perform the operation required. Other than that, OR nurses are also the ones who handle patients pre and post op. These nurses will be the ones to receive the patients into the OR and they will be the ones to send them off.

Roles of the OR Nurse

Beyond the Operating Room doors, lies a world that is more ordinary that most nurses think, well as ordinary as hospitals get. It is filled of all sorts of nurses – every type from the stereotypical scrub nurse to little known sponge and suture nurses.

Contrary to popular belief, not every nurse assigned in the OR work alongside doctors during surgeries. Some of them work as nurse managers, others work in the recovery room. Still, a select few work as nurse anesthesiologists. Below are some of the roles that operating room nurses undertake.

· Scrub Nurses– Scrub nurses are the nurses who have direct contact with the Surgical team and the patient during surgery. Scrub nurses stand alongside doctors, handing them the required instruments. They may also be called to retract tissue – whenever required. The scrub nurse is the classic image of the Operating Room nurse – this is the OR nurses are portrayed in movies and photographs.

The duties of the scrub nurse greatly depend on the institution where they work. In some hospitals it is the scrub nurse’s duty to gown and glove the surgeon and other members of the surgical team. In others, OR techs and nurse assistants exists to do that job for them. Some scrub nurses also take the shape of so-called sponge nurses.

· Sponge Nurses - Sponge nurse are OR nurses that have been assigned to rinse or clean the operating tools as soon as a surgeon puts it down. Sponge nurses are necessary especially, if the surgery requires a lot of debridement and excavation.

· Suture Nurses - Some nurses, called suture nurses – are allowed and licensed to sew a patient up after surgery. Suture nurses are often required to undergo training, certification and licensure before they can practice. The laws for licensure and certification of suture nurses vary from country to country and state to state.

· Nurses Anesthesiologists – Nurses Anesthesiologists are a special breed of OR nurses that only began to exist during the later part of the 20^th century. These are highly specialized and trained nurses that have spent time and money in order to get a license. These nurses are advance practice nurses (APNs) and their field is a steadily growing field that is increasing in popularity each year.

· Circulating Nurses – Circulating nurses can be any nurse from the OR team. Most nurses who are not busy work as circulating nurses. These nurses are the ones who make sure that the surgical team has everything they need. They will be the ones to run to the Central Supply Room and get supplies when necessary. The roles of the circulating nurse may also be taken over by nursing assistants and OR technicians.

· Nurse Managers and OR Head Nurses – The main role of Nurse Managers and Head Nurses may no longer involve scrubbing in to surgery. They are the ones involved of making sure that the OR is in order. They may also be the ones in charge of making organizing the OR and OR staff schedules.

How To Become an Operating Room Nurse

In order to become an operating room nurses, nurses must first have the right qualifications. In order to practice, nurses must first have a degree in Nursing. Some countries like the US and the Philippines require their nurses to get a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. The US is also open to nurses who have completed an Associate’s Degree in Nursing. These nurses are then required to gain licensure before they can practice. Other countries like the UK require their nurses to gain NVQ levels before they can work.

Some employers, especially those in the US, may also prefer it if their nurses become certified OR nurses. Certification is provided by Operating Room Nurses association and organizations in the US.

The Philippines also has its own organization in the form of ORNAP (Operating Room Nurses Association of the Philippines). The ORNAP provides their members with seminars and continuing education programs.

Work Opportunities for OR Nurses

There are a lot of work opportunities for OR nurses. In fact, OR nurses together with Critical Care Nurses, are a few of the most sought after nurses in the world. In order to secure a job abroad, nurses must make sure that they have enough work experience while they are still here in the Philippines.

EXPLORing NEW TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS AND SYSTEMS OF CARE FOR PERFORMING MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGICAL PROCEDURES

Traditional Operating Rooms are inefficient and overcrowded. Patient data are not integrated and displayed to caregivers in a timely fashion, and turnover time between cases is lengthy.

Technologies designed to impact procedural medicine are often introduced in isolation, usually failing to improve efficiency and safety, or reduce costs. Devices are often haphazardly introduced into a technologically complex environment. Integrating high technology components, however, is not sufficient to achieve the goal of better patient care; teamwork and communication in a high tech environment is equally essential.

To address many of these problems, CIMIT pioneered the MGH “Operating Room of the Future” (ORF) project. The ORF is a living laboratory that explores new technology platforms and systems of care for performing minimally invasive surgical procedures. Accurate data capture and analysis, multidisciplinary teamwork, and thoughtful integration of technology are the building blocks in this environment that optimizes patient safety and comfort, staff satisfaction, and financial efficiency.

The ORF is a testament to the power of collaboration. Launched in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in August of 2002, as a fully functional OR for minimally invasive procedures as well as for open surgery. It represents an extraordinary convergence of disciplines – clinicians, institutions, and private companies – all brought together by CIMIT, and major financial and intellectual investments by all parties. Advanced by critical partnerships, a number of pioneering programs are currently being explored in the ORF:

• Real-time workflow process improvement including parallel processing, novel IT architecture, asset management and patient tracking solutions;
  
• Clinical decision support systems combining patient-specific data with intelligent devices to create a perioperative zone of safety;
  
• Leading a national initiative on technology integration and open Plug-and-Play standards for medical devices; and
• Measuring outcomes to inform “evidence-based” OR facility design.

With this living, working, flexible learning environment, CIMT and MGH clinicians have been altering surgical care delivery. Beyond the ORF per se, procedures and workflow techniques developed here have propagated to the conventional ORs and have improved them through education, as well as by raising expectations of what is possible and by evaluating and choosing the best of technologies. Through our research, we will understand factors for optimal facility design, technology requirements, and deliver specifications for optimal team design and training. Additionally, we expect to show reduced medical errors and improved patient comfort and post discharge follow-up.