My Scrub Nurse Experience

My hospital training days at the Operating Room are already over. It ended last week and I can say that it was good while it lasted. I haven't encountered any troubles with the staff, with my superiors, with my colleagues, with the surgeons, with the equipments and most especially with the patients. 3 months was not enough to make me a confident scrub nurse. Heck, I cannot even memorize some of their equipment and some sutures being used.

When I was assigned on Orthopedic cases, gosh, I had a headache looking for the right incision set. Good thing that the surgeons were quite understanding because they really have plenty of equipment to use. I often thought that these Ortho doctors were also good in carpentry (and all of them are great in dress-making as they were good in stitching the wound, hehe). The other week, the patient had a Below-Knee-Amputation (I think you know what that means) so they have to use wire cutter to - well - be able to cut the bone (whew!). I was one of the circulating nurses then, so we were to receive the amputated leg of the patient and put it in a box and give it to the relatives. We could also see some hammers, screws, etc, being used by those surgeons. And if I had to scrub, I needed to wear a lead vest (which was quite heavy) to protect myself from the X-ray. They needed to do that in the middle of the operation to correctly determine which area was affected. Oh, and on my last day there, I was to monitor the patient who was hacked (literally, I mean hacked on the face up to the neck!) at the Recovery room. I don't know what happened to him now but I hope he survived.

Anyway, some surgeons from other field were nice but some were really strict and with an acerbic tongue! I think all of us were not exempted from experiencing some of the surgeons 'insult. It was irritating but then we had to let it pass by our ears. Sometimes, they blame us for giving them clamps that were self-releasing/dilapidated (as they termed it) but why blame us? They were the ones who frequently use it while we only served it to them? And to think some of these surgeons were just neophytes/residents and ironically, the consultants were kinder than them. But of course there were some surgeons who were very nice also and treated the nurses very well. They said they can't function without us (now, that's teamwork!). I wish they would all think like that, hehe.

Well, if there were some irritating surgeons, there were annoying staff nurses, too. I think some of them had become lazy because they let only the trainees do all the work for them. It would have been ok but at least they should stay at their post to guide us in case we lost track especially on rare cases. And to think we rendered our services for free - no salary for the whole 3-starving-months!!! (I think i'd rather do blogging and earn even just a little, hehe). Well, that's how the system goes in here in order to get a certificate (take it or leave it). But some staff were amazing and helpful, too, and I was glad to have met them.

Despite that kind of atmosphere, overall, the experience was worth it. It taught me humility - of course, we were to clean the bloody area afterward and if the patient pooped, it would be our responsibility to clean it up, too - which, unfortunately, did happen to me!!
It also taught me discipline, to be more compassionate, to have a good interpersonal relationship with co-workers - and to be more careful with my health.

Well, maybe someday I'll work with them again (I thought of working at the ICU - another challenging area) but Not now, especially that I just kicked out our house help last week for being so hard-headed (she went home late again!). She was a bad liar, too, and what's worst, she couldn't be trusted as I found some of my items on her cabinet. Now, at least I feel safe not having her around anymore.