Operating room nurse job description sample, including tasks, skills, and responsibilities to edit to attract top candidates for your business.
The operating room is an area of high stress. Even if the operation is small, there may be many things that would make a mistake. Therefore a surgeon needs a team of experts who can handle such pressing situations and who can work with such experience. That’s why the nurse in the operating room has a special position in the medical profession.
The title is quite clear; the nurse in the operating room can only mean one thing, nurses assisting surgeons in the operating room. Nurses in the operating room are particularly well-trained for this position. The first quality they must possess is the ability to work under pressure so many times that surgeons need to intervene in the event of an emergency. They should also be able to tolerate the sight of blood that patients bleed during the operation.
Nurses in the operating room give the doctors all the necessary equipment during operation. The tools used must be cleaned and sterilized before the surgery by the nurses. ORN should check before surgery if all required equipment is present or not. They must also prepare the patients before surgery.
An important duty in describing ORN work in the workroom is to check the number of required tools before and after surgery. Many times, surgeons forget the instruments inside the patients and conceal them. However, surgeons control the instrument; the nurses must be very careful and avoid incidents of this kind.
Duty and Responsibility of the Operating Room Nurse
- They assist the surgeons during surgery and should also coordinate with the surgeons.
- All surgical equipment must be sterilized before and after surgery
- Clean and maintain proper hygiene standards
- ORN must control the instruments before and after surgery
- They need to deliver surgical equipment quickly during surgery
- They must be able to stand for a long time, as some operations can continue for several hours.
- They have to prepare the patients before surgery and take them to the operating room
- They should talk to the patient’s family along with the surgeon and help them understand the procedure
- They have to examine the patient before and after the operation and make sure they wake up from anesthesia
- Collect all the necessary materials for the operation
- Take responsibility for maintaining a sterilized operating room
- Place and prepare the patient on the operating table
- Transfer of medical instruments or other objects to the surgeon during surgery
- Check vital signs of patients on abnormalities
- Evaluate the patient in postoperative phases
- Observe safety standards and precautions
- Assign tasks inside or outside the sterile field as assigned
Requirements
- Proven experience as an ORN (circulating and scrub)
- Excellent knowledge of aseptic and sterile techniques
- Solid knowledge of patient safety and precautionary measures
- Deep knowledge of surgical procedures
- Exceptional organizational capacities
- An exceptional team player with exceptional communication skills
- Cool tempered with emotional and physical resistance
- Diploma in nursing and a valid license
Skills
- Excellent surgical preparation and nursing skills
- Fluency in spoken and written English
- Powerful Evaluation and Coordination Skills
- Capable of postoperative care
- Ability to explain and put patients on ease of operation
- Experience in assisting surgeons and equipment during surgery