Perioperative Nursing Contributions to Patient Care

AORN Journal, March, 2000

AORN of Anchorage--Partners in Care, 50 Years of Magic

In Anchorage, we are at a time when a perioperative nursing elective in the university's bachelor of nursing program is, at best, one semester every other year. To ensure that even this happens, every effort is made to promote its existence and enhance its benefits.

As perioperative nurses of the AORN of Anchorage chapter, we have wholeheartedly supported the inclusion of a perioperative nursing elective at the university. We have many reasons for doing this. Ultimately, the quality of patient care depends on the availability of interested and qualified perioperative nurses. If a perioperative elective is not offered, there is little chance to expose nursing students to the OR. Consequently, few if any graduating nurses in this city gravitate towards this specialty.

If we can't keep students interested in perioperative nursing, are we going to be a dying breed? Sadly, we all know that the average age of the OR nurse is getting "older." We are sure this scenario is not exclusive to Alaska, although due to our location and lower population numbers, it certainly creates a unique situation. What are the options for obtaining new recruits to fill our OR nurse vacancies here in Anchorage? We can hire locally, we can hire from outside the state, and we can provide perioperative training programs for nurses within our local facilities. Hiring from the "Lower 48" can be time consuming as well as costly. One source in Anchorage reports that it takes an average of 10 months to fill one OR nurse position at her facility.

To hire locally, we must either have qualified applicants or "interested" applicants; thus, perioperative training programs have emerged within our facilities. A few such programs exist in Anchorage already, and a few more facilities are beginning to develop their own programs because of the inability to recruit qualified applicants.

The bottom line is that there must be "interest" in OR nursing as well as exposure to this specialty. It becomes imperative to promote a perioperative nursing elective at the university to ensure that this happens. Call it nurturing and caring for our own, call it survival, call it creating the next generation of OR nurses--we made a choice to become involved and we have found that it does make a difference!

Last August, AORN of Anchorage board member, Jackie Roeder, RN, BSN, addressed University of Alaska, Anchorage, nursing students who were taking the perioperative elective. She talked about AORN in general and specifically about our local chapter. She promoted membership and its benefits to students and also invited them to our chapter meeting during OR Nurse Week. Five students from this class joined us on Nov 12, 1998. They shared their didactic and perioperative clinical experiences with us, and we shared information about AORN with them. We talked about our national organization, our local chapter, committee activities, Congress, OR specialties, and career options in perioperative nursing. It became evident that evening how excited they were about perioperative nursing and how important they felt it was to keep this elective alive in their nursing curriculum. They felt that it should be offered more frequently and that members of our chapter could make this possible by working with the faculty at the university and by increasing our support of the program.

Currently, the students must complete 40 hours of clinical experience as well as the didactic portion of the elective. AORN member Gail Augdahl, RN, BSN, CNOR, acts as adjunct faculty member for the clinical portion. Kathleen Melican, RN, MSN, FNP, teaches the didactic component. Nurse preceptors at each facility work with the students to complete their clinical requirements. Most preceptors are AORN members eager to involve the student nurses in a variety of clinical experiences above and beyond their basic requirements for the course. The students have been well accepted in all facilities throughout the area that offer OR services. These facilities include Providence Alaska Medical Center, Alaska Regional Hospital, Alaska Native Medical Center, Alaska Surgery Center, Geneva Woods Surgical Center, Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic, Valley Hospital in Palmer, and the USAF 3rd Medical Group at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

Successes of our support? We are only in the beginning stages, which leaves us a lot of room for growth and continued involvement. Unanimously, the students thought that this perioperative rotation was the "best" clinical rotation they had experienced. Last year, from a small class of 14, one has joined AORN as a student nurse. And in the job market? We have yet to see how many will pursue the OR as their choice of employment after they graduate from their nursing program.

To continue to provide the "best," AORN of Anchorage will continue to support the perioperative nursing program with its preceptors and invitations to the students to attend monthly meetings. Our goal is to become more involved with the faculty and the nursing students at the university to provide more exposure to a career in perioperative nursing. Our involvement makes a difference!