Authors (including presenting author) :
Wan NW (1), Ng ML (2), Yip PL (1)(2)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Anaesthesia and Operating Theatre, Tuen Mun Hospital
(2)Department of Anaesthesia and Operating Theatre, Pok Oi Hospital
Introduction :
New OR nurses face challenges in adapting their new roles at the start of their career because of limited prior exposure to the specialty of Perioperative Nursing.
All new OR nurses in NTWC are trained under preceptorship program with theoretical inputs to build up related knowledge and then guided practice by preceptors in the first three months. However, they still experience high level of stress in the first few months due to requisite of high accuracy and high efficiency for OR work. In order to consolidate their theoretical inputs and bridge the gap between knowledge and practice, a clinical skill training workshop is designed for all NTWC new OR nurses to equip them with necessary technical skills and knowledge before their real practice.
Objectives :
1. To establish a secure and non-threatening environment for new OR nurses to practice essential technical skills of scrub nurse and circulating nurse in mimic-real scenarios.
2. To reinforce essential concepts with mini-lecture.
3. To facilitate new OR nurses to get familiarize with real situations of theatre setup, scrubbing roles like surgical instrument handling, assisting in surgical steps, surgical counting,
etc.
4. To build up new OR nurses' confidence level and decrease their anxiety level for real practice.
Methodology :
Each batch of new OR nurses in NTWC who have just finished three weeks of theoretical input of perioperative nursing in TMH OR or POH OR are assigned to attend a workshop since September, 2023. At least eight workshops have been organized so far.
In each workshop, a mini-lecture is delivered first to reinforce basic concepts and principles like surgical scrub, gowning and gloving, aseptic technique, surgical counting, etc. Interactive skill stations to demonstrate draping sterile field, handling of sutures and surgical blades, passing surgical instruments to surgeon and identifying surgical instruments, etc., and return demonstration by participants is required. Then, they are grouped into pairs and take turn to participate into scenarios of scrub nurse, circulating nurses and observers. They have to carry out assigned jobs to practice their technical skills in appropriate sequence. Debriefing will be carried out to discuss their strength, weakness and area for improvement.
After each workshop, the new OR nurses were invited to return their feedbacks in Google form questionnaire.
Result & Outcome :
Forty-four responses were collected. After the workshop, 95.4 % agreed the workshop made them feel more familiar with the real situations. All of them felt less worry in real situations. 97.7% agreed their confidence in scrub nurse and circulating nurse work was increased. All agreed they could practice to handle surgical sutures and blades more properly and safely. The new OR nurses also thought the workshop help them in real situations in the following areas like instrument and gauze counting (95.5%), passing instruments (93.2%), layout of working trolley (93.2%), setup of diathermy pen and suction device (93.2%), draping technique (90.9%), sharps handling (86.4%) and gowning and gloving (81.8%).
Further comments also expressed the workshop provided a good atmosphere and environment for them to get used to the "unfamiliar conditions and techniques". Others suggested to provide more scenario, explain more common cases, more workshop and longer workshop.
To conclude, the Clinical Skill Training Workshop for new OR nurses in NTWC achieves the objectives. In the future, more workshops and skill related training can be planned to facilitate the new OR nurses for their new roles adaptation, to increase their confidence, lessen their frustrations and improve their wellbeing.
