Preoperative Nursing Essay

The role of the nurse in the preoperative area is to determine the patient’s psychological status to help with the use of coping during the surgery process. Determine physiologic factors directly or indirectly related to the surgical procedure that may cause operative risk factors. Establish baseline data for comparison in the intraoperative and postoperative period. Participate in the identification and documentation of the surgical site and or side of body on which the procedure is to be performed. Identify prescription drugs, over the counter, and herbal supplements that are taken by the patient that may interact and affect the surgical outcome. Document the results of all preoperative laboratory and diagnostic tests in the patient’s record

The nurse must make sure all cosmetics, jewelry, nail polish, dentures, contacts, and glasses are removed. IV lines are started on the patient and antibiotics either started or hung for the doctor to start once the surgery begins. When transferring to the OR the nurse is responsible for passing off all information necessary to the health care providers. The intraoperative nurse is usually the first member from the surgical team that greets the patient and is the patients advocate throughout the intraoperative period. The scrub nurse is a sterile role in which you are gowned, gloved, and keep the sterile field from being contaminated. The circulating nurse is not gowned or gloved in sterile attire and is in charge of documenting the patients state and helping the surgeon with his needs such as run labs or pull up diagnostic tests or scans for the surgeon to see. Both nurses are part of the time out process and make sure the surgery is done on the right patient, right site, right side of body, and gets the count of the equipment being used before and after the surgery. The circulating nurse usually moves with the patient into PACU and gives the nurse there an

Time out was done by the anesthesiologist, the circulating nurse, the surgeon, and the scrub tech all pausing before the surgery and verifying the patient’s name and date of birth, the procedure being done, the site and location on the body in which the procedure was being done, and documented the count of all the equipment the scrub nurse had before surgery to compare to after surgery. 5. The patient’s privacy was protected and respected throughout the whole surgical procedure. The staff was very professional and I felt I learned a lot from them during my OR experience. 6. A sponge count is when the scrub nurse counts the sponges that are unused before the surgery she relays this to the circulating nurse and it is documented. After the surgery the count is redone to make sure that there are no sponges left in the patient. 7. The circulating nurse documents the information and signs the chart in the operating room. From pre-op to the operating room the nurses in pre-op gave off report to the circulating nurse by SBAR. From the operating room to PACU the anesthesiologist went with the patient and handed off the patient’s condition and information to the nurse in there. 8. There were no ethical or legal issues that were raised during my observation in the whole surgical process. 9. I learned how the whole operating procedure works from start to finish, all the legal paperwork involved, and how the team interacts and helps each other out to give the patient a safe and