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Share your stories during Perioperative Nurse Week
PRESIDENT’S
MESSAGE
Share your stories during Perioperative Nurse Week
A
ccording to records at AORN Headquarters, individual members, chapters, and hospitals and other medical facilities have participated in Perioperative Nurse Week since 1979, actively educating others on the diverse roles perioperative nurses perform. The theme of this year’s celebration, “Perioperative Nurses: We’re There for Safe Care,” reinforces our goal of increasing the visibility of the perioperative nurse and promoting our profession. It allows us to reflect on the value we bring to the perioperative team and the integral role we play in patient and workplace safety. Perioperative Nurse Week gives us a platform to promote our practice to others, which helps to decrease our anonymity. Let us educate others about quality improvement efforts and implementation of standards in areas such as wrong site surgery, safe medication administration, fire safety, surgical counts, and error reduction. As perioperative nurses, we have the power to affect the delivery of safe care, which is of vital importance to everyone and is at the core of our professional values.
EDUCATING PATIENTS How successful have you been in letting your patients know about excellence in patient advocacy? As I reflect on the value of perioperative nursing activities that relate to patient safety, I can only imagine how much is sometimes lost in the translation of what we say we do and what a patient really understands. For instance, if I asked you to list what you do for your patient in each case as a circulator, you might say that you • administer the preoperative antibiotics, • perform the surgical time out, © AORN, Inc, 2006
Paula R. Graling, RN
•
label and record the medications on the operative record, • perform a skin prep and let it dry appropriately, • perform sponge and instrument counts, and • position the patient with padding. In a conversation with a patient, however, it would be educational and valuable to explain, In preparing you for your surgery, I will give you antibiotics to decrease the possibility of a wound infection. I will perform a time out to prevent a wrong site surgery. I will confirm medications and allergies to prevent a wrong medication from being given to you. I will use safety measures to prevent both fire and positioning injuries from occurring. I will count instruments and sponges so they will not be left inside you. All these actions are the reasons that it is important to have a perioperative RN circulator with you, our patient, during an operative procedure.
WAYS TO SHARE YOUR STORIES “When events are told in the form of a story, they catch our attention and leave a lasting memory.”1(s10) Last year, President Sharon McNamara, RN, MS, CNOR, wrote about sharing the stories of perioperative nursing and gave us several examples of storytelling opportunities, whether in the workplace with other health care practitioners, in the community with potential patients, or in schools with potential nursing students.2 I think it would be wonderful if all patients knew a story about a NOVEMBER 2006, VOL 84, NO 5 • AORN JOURNAL • 741
President’s Message
NOVEMBER 2006, VOL 84, NO 5
perioperative nurse. I tell my own story each time I am introduced to someone as your President. There are times that folks do not understand the acronym AORN and many times that the term perioperative is foreign to their vocabulary. Opportunities to discuss our practice and what we do for patients can be welcomed with a smile, a handshake, or a simple introduction that can turn into a story-sharing experience. You may share your story by connecting with your local newspaper for an interview about Perioperative Nurse Week. Host an open house or educational session on the topic of patient safety in the OR and invite preprocedure patients, their family members, students, and the general public. A Perioperative Nurse Week banner in the hospital lobby may get the attention of patients and visitors entering the facility and prompt a discussion about what perioperative nurses do. One colleague suggested wearing a button that reads, “Ask me about perioperative nursing” to create opportunities for a dialogue with patients, their family members, and others. If you have a surgery-specific waiting area, you may want to have a few copies of the book Tea and Toast for the Perioperative Nurse’s Spirit 3 available on the waiting room table. This would provide reading material for people waiting for surgical patients and offer a unique way to share inspira-
742 • AORN JOURNAL
tional perioperative nursing stories. Please remember that it is not just the patients who don’t know about perioperative nursing; other health care colleagues may not be familiar with what happens behind the double doors of the OR. Some hospital surgical suites will have an open house this
Opportunities to discuss our practice and what we do for patients can be welcomed with a smile, a handshake, or a simple introduction that can turn into a story-sharing experience. month and invite hospital employees to visit as a spotlight on specialty services. Another opportunity is to highlight your specialty practice in a hospital newsletter column, a paragraph in a nursing annual report, an article in a journal, or an e-mail to your alumni bulletin. Many institutions have launched significant events to
create an understanding of the perioperative environment for this Perioperative Nurse Week. What activities has your facility planned to highlight the work that you do? We will be glad to share the stories of those events in future AORN publications.
TAKING AN ACTIVE ROLE As frontline health care providers, we set an example with our actions and behavior. To promote a culture of safety, we must take an active role in mentoring our peers and be a resource for others. I ask you to use Perioperative Nurse Week as a stage to educate others about the value of the perioperative nursing profession and its instrumental role in patient safety and the achievement of optimal patient outcomes. To all my perioperative colleagues, have a wonderful Perioperative Nurse Week. It is a privilege to serve you as your President. ❖ PAULA R. GRALING RN, MSN, CNS, CNOR AORN PRESIDENT
NOTES 1. S C Beyea, A Killen, G E Knox, “Learning from stories— A pathway to patient safety,” in SafetyNet: Lessons Learned from Close Calls in the OR, AORN Journal 84 suppl 1 (July 2006) s10. 2. S A McNamara, “Sharing the stories of perioperative nursing,” AORN Journal 82 (November 2005) 745-748. 3. J Rothrock, E K Murphy, P C Seifert, eds, Tea and Toast for the Perioperative Nurse’s Spirit (Denver: AORN, Inc, 2006).
MESSAGE
Share your stories during Perioperative Nurse Week
A
ccording to records at AORN Headquarters, individual members, chapters, and hospitals and other medical facilities have participated in Perioperative Nurse Week since 1979, actively educating others on the diverse roles perioperative nurses perform. The theme of this year’s celebration, “Perioperative Nurses: We’re There for Safe Care,” reinforces our goal of increasing the visibility of the perioperative nurse and promoting our profession. It allows us to reflect on the value we bring to the perioperative team and the integral role we play in patient and workplace safety. Perioperative Nurse Week gives us a platform to promote our practice to others, which helps to decrease our anonymity. Let us educate others about quality improvement efforts and implementation of standards in areas such as wrong site surgery, safe medication administration, fire safety, surgical counts, and error reduction. As perioperative nurses, we have the power to affect the delivery of safe care, which is of vital importance to everyone and is at the core of our professional values.
EDUCATING PATIENTS How successful have you been in letting your patients know about excellence in patient advocacy? As I reflect on the value of perioperative nursing activities that relate to patient safety, I can only imagine how much is sometimes lost in the translation of what we say we do and what a patient really understands. For instance, if I asked you to list what you do for your patient in each case as a circulator, you might say that you • administer the preoperative antibiotics, • perform the surgical time out, © AORN, Inc, 2006
Paula R. Graling, RN
•
label and record the medications on the operative record, • perform a skin prep and let it dry appropriately, • perform sponge and instrument counts, and • position the patient with padding. In a conversation with a patient, however, it would be educational and valuable to explain, In preparing you for your surgery, I will give you antibiotics to decrease the possibility of a wound infection. I will perform a time out to prevent a wrong site surgery. I will confirm medications and allergies to prevent a wrong medication from being given to you. I will use safety measures to prevent both fire and positioning injuries from occurring. I will count instruments and sponges so they will not be left inside you. All these actions are the reasons that it is important to have a perioperative RN circulator with you, our patient, during an operative procedure.
WAYS TO SHARE YOUR STORIES “When events are told in the form of a story, they catch our attention and leave a lasting memory.”1(s10) Last year, President Sharon McNamara, RN, MS, CNOR, wrote about sharing the stories of perioperative nursing and gave us several examples of storytelling opportunities, whether in the workplace with other health care practitioners, in the community with potential patients, or in schools with potential nursing students.2 I think it would be wonderful if all patients knew a story about a NOVEMBER 2006, VOL 84, NO 5 • AORN JOURNAL • 741
President’s Message
NOVEMBER 2006, VOL 84, NO 5
perioperative nurse. I tell my own story each time I am introduced to someone as your President. There are times that folks do not understand the acronym AORN and many times that the term perioperative is foreign to their vocabulary. Opportunities to discuss our practice and what we do for patients can be welcomed with a smile, a handshake, or a simple introduction that can turn into a story-sharing experience. You may share your story by connecting with your local newspaper for an interview about Perioperative Nurse Week. Host an open house or educational session on the topic of patient safety in the OR and invite preprocedure patients, their family members, students, and the general public. A Perioperative Nurse Week banner in the hospital lobby may get the attention of patients and visitors entering the facility and prompt a discussion about what perioperative nurses do. One colleague suggested wearing a button that reads, “Ask me about perioperative nursing” to create opportunities for a dialogue with patients, their family members, and others. If you have a surgery-specific waiting area, you may want to have a few copies of the book Tea and Toast for the Perioperative Nurse’s Spirit 3 available on the waiting room table. This would provide reading material for people waiting for surgical patients and offer a unique way to share inspira-
742 • AORN JOURNAL
tional perioperative nursing stories. Please remember that it is not just the patients who don’t know about perioperative nursing; other health care colleagues may not be familiar with what happens behind the double doors of the OR. Some hospital surgical suites will have an open house this
Opportunities to discuss our practice and what we do for patients can be welcomed with a smile, a handshake, or a simple introduction that can turn into a story-sharing experience. month and invite hospital employees to visit as a spotlight on specialty services. Another opportunity is to highlight your specialty practice in a hospital newsletter column, a paragraph in a nursing annual report, an article in a journal, or an e-mail to your alumni bulletin. Many institutions have launched significant events to
create an understanding of the perioperative environment for this Perioperative Nurse Week. What activities has your facility planned to highlight the work that you do? We will be glad to share the stories of those events in future AORN publications.
TAKING AN ACTIVE ROLE As frontline health care providers, we set an example with our actions and behavior. To promote a culture of safety, we must take an active role in mentoring our peers and be a resource for others. I ask you to use Perioperative Nurse Week as a stage to educate others about the value of the perioperative nursing profession and its instrumental role in patient safety and the achievement of optimal patient outcomes. To all my perioperative colleagues, have a wonderful Perioperative Nurse Week. It is a privilege to serve you as your President. ❖ PAULA R. GRALING RN, MSN, CNS, CNOR AORN PRESIDENT
NOTES 1. S C Beyea, A Killen, G E Knox, “Learning from stories— A pathway to patient safety,” in SafetyNet: Lessons Learned from Close Calls in the OR, AORN Journal 84 suppl 1 (July 2006) s10. 2. S A McNamara, “Sharing the stories of perioperative nursing,” AORN Journal 82 (November 2005) 745-748. 3. J Rothrock, E K Murphy, P C Seifert, eds, Tea and Toast for the Perioperative Nurse’s Spirit (Denver: AORN, Inc, 2006).