Our clinic performs more than 5 thousand surgeries a year, and not even one can be done without them: operating room nurses. Every year on February 15, they celebrate their professional holiday - International Operating Nurse Day, established in 2009 as universal recognition of the work of these specialists.
Exceptional assistants to surgeons, their second pair of eyes and hands, they know the entire procedure of surgery in seconds and understand surgeons without words. These nurses know complete facts about all instruments, implantable medical device, suture and dressing materials; ensure sterility and monitor compliance with aseptic and antiseptic instructions; Along with surgeons, they are responsible for the safety of the patient and the successful outcome of the intervention. Our surgical nurses cannot be taken in an unguarded hour - they are always ready for the arrival of emergency patients and bring the operating room to full combat readiness in a matter of minutes. It is no coincidence that the specialty of surgical nurse is considered the pinnacle of professionalism of nursing staff.
The Department of X-ray surgical methods of diagnosis and treatment of our Center was opened in 1986. At the origins of the organization of nursing surgical work was Valentina Fedotovna Malkova, the senior nurse. She led the nursing and junior medical staff of the department for many years. With her participation, three surgical rooms were opened at the clinic. Valentina Fedotovna selected operating nurses and organized their work, was engaged in duties concerning equipment and papers. In 2007 V.F. Malkova was awarded the title “Honored Healthcare Worker of the Russian Federation.”
Svetlana Gennadievna Duryagina, the Head nurse of the Department of X-Ray Endovascular Diagnostics and Treatment # 1 shared that surgical nurses were people of the invisible front. Not only patients, but also many employees did not recognize them by sight. Not every nurse could be an surgical room nurse, but those nurses who had come to the surgical room and had been able to stay in that job had been specially selected. In addition to theoretical knowledge about the surgical room, there were unwritten laws and rituals in the surgical room, something that could not be learned anywhere except the surgical room itself. How and where to move, what not to touch, when and what to ask, and by the surgeon’s facial expressions or gestures, to determine what was necessary. To her mind surgical nurse was responsible for everything that happened around the surgeon. She had had to know not only the course of the surgery, but also the stage at which a particular surgical instrument was required.
Svetlana Gennadievna said,When minutes counted, both the patient’s life and the success of the surgical intervention depended on the experience, precision in work, intuition and endurance. She is the first to enter the operating room long before the operation, prepares all the necessary instruments, dressings, equipment, and is the last to leave. It is impossible for an operating nurse to do without her main assistant - the nurse. These are conscientious and honest people, without whom cleanliness and sterility in the operating room is impossible. It is the nurses who will be able to correctly give the nurse sterile material and instruments, place the patient on the operating table, and clean the operating room according to all the rules and disinfect surgical instruments. Therefore, everyone who works in the operating room is interconnected; the chain “surgeon – operating room nurse – nurse” cannot be broken. The success of the surgical intervention depends on each employee, how clearly and conscientiously he performs his work. Therefore, in honor of our professional holiday, I would like to introduce our operating nurses and nurses.