What to expect as a newbie in the operating room!!

So you got accepted into a program, now what's next? You're looking at about nine months of orientation. How are you going to manage all of this? All this stuff is knowledge that you've never learned in the operating room. I'm gonna walk you through literally everything in this video. Here we go. If you don't already follow me, my name is Bianca. I've been an OR nurse for over three years. I went straight out of college. I got my bachelors in Boston and I've been the coordinator for orthopedic surgery for over a year now. I also make videos about the OR constantly. You need a notebook. I don't care if you're a note-taker or not. You need a tiny notebook to carry with you separated by specialty, separated by equipment, have a whole separate equipment tab with settings, separated by your meds, your Bupie, your lidocaine, your TXA, your Xarelto. Meds you're using all the time, you should know what they are. In orthopedics, we use something called Zynolaf, which I need to be aware of and I need to be mindful that if my patient has an inset allergy, I should probably see what it is and not give that med. Take notes on every sterile line. Ask any questions that you want because once you're five years in, 10 years in, you shouldn't be asking these questions. You can ask as many questions as you want on orientation. Show up early. On time is late. I'm sick of telling you. On time is late. Show up early to your rooms. If your rooms are supposed to start at 7, get there, clock in at 6:53, and then get your ass to your room. You're gonna do whatever you need to do. You don't need to go to the computer right away. If you want to tap in, sure, tap in. But you're gonna go to your pick sheets and look at stuff. Don't do this right away. You're wasting time. As you're getting into your rhythm, you're gonna know basic stuff that you need. You'll probably be able to pick a lot of this stuff out of order. First is going one by one on a list. Okay, Bovie. Let's go search for the Bovie. Okay, I need four half sheets. Let's go search for the half sheets. It doesn't make sense. Pull everything that you think you need and then make a small pile of stuff that you're not sure about and check it. Make sure your room is in the prime position. If you're working on a certain side, your Bovie and your section, you're probably going to be on the opposite side. If I'm doing a right ankle, I'm gonna call C-arm but they're going to be on the left side, always. Open, count, meds, yellow pads for the floor because your surgeons are going to make a mess. Any images that you need to get up. Don't be on your phone literally ever. If it's an emergency, tell your preceptor, step outside the room and do whatever you got to do. Don't ever be on your phone. Give yourself grace and you should be receiving grace from your preceptors. When I'm teaching, I am understanding of these people. If they have any concerns or fears, like we'll gladly work through them one on one. I never as a preceptor going to embarrass you in front of everybody, nurses, anesthesiologists, scrub techs, whatever. It is not the way to approach people. If you have an issue, then you need to speak to your preceptor. Your preceptor needs to speak to you. And usually, I'll just go behind a room, we'll discuss what we need to discuss and then we'll move on. I'm a helicopter mom and my preceptees know that. So they'll go do something and then I'll be trying to work on that. So it is a little tip for me. So it is totally okay to tell your preceptor, I want you to do absolutely nothing. You want me to be confident in me, just stay in a corner of the room and let me do my thing. If you have any more questions, drop them in the comments, I'll be happy to answer them.