Precepting A New Nurse Resident In The OR

Does your operating room offer a nurse residency program for nurses wanting to work in the operating room? It's an exciting adventure to be sure. I work at UNC Hospital in the operating room. There is a good nurse residency program there. Experienced nurses, as well as new graduate nurses, are accepted into the course. The first few weeks are all classroom. Subjects include sterile technique, instrumentation, sterilization, and just about anything associated with the operating room's daily routines. After the nurse residents complete the classroom portion, they start the clinical portion of the program. I am a primary preceptor for the clinical portion of the nurse residency program. A new group has just started the clinical phase of their training.

As a preceptor, I try to take the first day to learn about the needs and educational desires of the trainee. It does me no good to use visual cues if they are a tactile learner. I ask them to give me a list of things they think are important for them to learn the first day and we go from there. I stress the importance of patient care and safety. I teach them that their focus is the patient, not the computer. Unfortunately, they are so locked in on the charting, that the patient becomes secondary at times. I work on this all day the first day. I think positive reinforcement is an essential tool to teaching.

There is so much to learn in the OR. I remind each student I have that they are not going to learn everything in a day, week, or month. I tell them that I have been in the OR for 28 years and I am still learning. With all the changes that occur in surgical procedures and equipment, learning is a constant process in the OR.

Our nurse residency program is not long enough, in my opinion. Each new resident only gets three weeks in each specialty. The first week is circulating, the second week is scrubbing, and the third week is the choice of the resident as to whether they want to scrub or circulate. Now my specialty is General Surgery and Urology. General surgery has General GI surgery, Surgical Oncology, and Trauma. Urology can be broken into several categories as well. There are open cases, Robot cases, and cysto. It is very difficult to cover these 4 arenas of surgery in just 3 weeks. My personal opinion is that these new residents should get 3 weeks in each of these surgical specialties, but I don't make that decision.

My priorities for teaching include patient safety, patient comfort, prioritization of tasks, maintaining the sterile field, and the importance of accurate documentation. I stress to each nurse resident that it will take them about a year before they start to become confident in their skills. I encourage them to establish a routine that helps them remember the steps to take in starting a case. I instruct them in the things they need to do for a case regardless of the specialty. There are certain things you do all the time.

T-Shirts For Perioperative Nurses

I have written a new Squidoo page with t-shirts for Surgical techs and OR and PACU nurses. Check it out here.

These are samples of what you will find:

Good Scrub Tech by bethd821

OR Nurses Keep by bethd821

Gifts For Certified Nurses Day

Certified Nurses Day is March 19th. Show your certified nurses they are important and you appreciate their efforts to improve the quality of their care to patients.

Design by Day has a selection of gifts for you to give. Here is an example. The text can be changed from CNOR to CRNA or CRNFA if you choose.

CNOR by bethd821
Browse more Cnor Buttons

Certified Nurses Day

CCI, Counseling and Credentialing Institute, has declared March 19, 2010 as Certified Nurses Day. This applies to CNOR and CRNFA certifications. Certified nurses embody the nursing spirit and set a high standard in the field. CCI and AORN are honoring these nurses with special discounts on CNOR and CRNFA gifts and apparel.

Check out these sites to see the discounts offered:

CNOR pins - http://www.cc-institute.org/stor_cnor.aspx

CNOR plaque - http://www.cc-institute.org/stor_plaque.aspx

CRNFA pins - http://www.cc-institute.org/stor_crnf.aspx

Gifts for Perioperative Nurses - http://www.cc-institute.org/stor_peri.aspx

CNOR/CRNFA clothes - http://www.cc-institute.org/store_clothes.aspx

From the CCI website:

About Certified Nurses Day
History of Certified Nurses Day-March 19, 2010
CNOR®s and CRNFA®demonstrate their personal commitment to "every patient, every day" by earning and maintaining their certification. There's no better time to celebrate that commitment than on Certified Nurses Day, March 19, 2010.

Certified Nurses Day started as just an idea and quickly gained support before the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) launched the program nationwide in 2008. This special day is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the contribution of board certified nurses to the advancement of nursing professionalism and to higher standards and better outcomes in patient health.

Certified Nurses Day may be a relatively new concept, but it has strong ties to the history of nursing certification in the United States. ANCC selected March 19th because it is the birthday of Margretta "Gretta" Madden Styles, who is known as the "Mother of Nurse Credentialing." Styles was the architect of the first comprehensive study of nursing credentialing in the 1970s. She also served as President of the American Nurses Association, the International Council of Nurses, the California Board of Registered Nursing and the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

With the support of OR nurses, CCI hopes to help the nursing community raise awareness, celebrate and encourage certification, improve patient outcomes, support extraordinary care and further the role of certification in the American healthcare system.

Message from the CCI Board of Directors President:
CCI and our certificants are committed to creating a culture of safety for patients through certification and professional development. Certified Nurses Day gives the healthcare community the opportunity to stand up and celebrate the work that certified nurses do in all areas and to help support the delivery of quality patient care.
Michelle Byrne RN, PHD, CNOR

Board certification is a key factor in the assurance of minimum standards of knowledge, skills and abilities in nursing specialty practice and contributes to better patient outcomes. National certification allows nurses to be recognized for competence in their specialty.

Let your certified nurses know you appreciate their knowledge and expertise by thanking them for their efforts on Certified Nurses Day.