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Do student nurses go in theatre during their placement?? Need answers

I'm starting adult nursing in September, and I think I can manage all aspects of nursing expect for when it comes to assisting in surgery I am terrified and I know I would faint
my question is do student nurses assist in theatre? Even if u know u don't want to have anything to do with surgery later when I graduate?

Reply 1

fifimas

We were told we would either do an A&E, theatres or HDU placement, in the third year. Suppose it depends on your Uni.

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Reply 2

Chwirkytheappleboy

I've seen student nurses floating around in theatres before but only to watch... I've never seen them assist. That tends to be the job of medical students and junior doctors.

Reply 3

moonkatt

Original post by Chwirkytheappleboy

I've seen student nurses floating around in theatres before but only to watch... I've never seen them assist. That tends to be the job of medical students and junior doctors.

What about scrub nurses? What do you think they're doing?

OP, student nurses can get placed in theatre, it's quite a marmite area of practice though. Some love and some hate it. When I worked in theatres we'd get the students to spend time in each part of the peri op process; anaesthetics, scrub and recovery. I've had student nurses with me at the table scrubbed and even seen a few as the main scrub nurse with their mentor taking a back seat. It's a brilliant way to actually see the body's gross anatomy and surgeons love the sound of their own voice so they like showing you what's going on.

Anaesthetics can be really interesting, you get to see advanced airway management skills, the anaesthetists tend to be a nice bunch of people who are good at teaching which is handy as a theatre placement is usually linked to your critical care module which often has an exam at some point.

With recovery, it's probably the most "nursey" area of the three, you get to look after people as they wake, remove some types of airways, understand the changes in their obs, deal with pain or nausea and so on. You can get skills from this which come in really handy even if you never work in theatres.

I understand the thought of theatres can be quite daunting, it's likely you'll get lots of opportunity to go watch things through the three years so why not try at least once? People regularly faint in theatre, staff there tend to be able to notice if it's going to happen.

Reply 4

Chwirkytheappleboy

Original post by moonkatt

What about scrub nurses? What do you think they're doing?

I was referring to being the assistant surgeon, as that's what I think of if someone talks about "assisting" in surgery. However, I also haven't seen a student nurse playing scrub nurse either. It's good to hear that you do have student nurses scrubbed in with you... I've only ever seen them wandering round the theatre looking bored. I'm glad that some places let them get involved

Reply 5

keano2014

Yeah, I had a similar problem, but luckily there was loads of people desperate for my theatre placement and I got it swapped for recovery.

If you super object to going somewhere you can get it changed, just do it early and see the placement people in person - they're a reasonable bunch.