Registered Nurse; RN - Operating Room

Overview

The Circulating RN works collaboratively with the Surgical Team to ensure patient safety and positive patient outcomes. The role involves monitoring surgical cases for sterility, supporting the surgical team from outside the sterile field, maintaining thorough and complete intra‑operative documentation, and setting up and preparing the operating room. The RN adheres to AORN standards and practices. Call schedule (after training is complete) covers overbook and emergent cases only, in a small critical access hospital with two ORs and one endoscopy suite.

Variable days into the evening M‑F with no holiday or weekend regular hours.

• Utilizes the nursing process in caring for all patients—assessing symptoms, planning interventions, implementing treatment plans, evaluating responses, and revising the plan based on overall effectiveness.
• Demonstrates the skills necessary to provide individualized care to the population served.
• Adheres to the established practice standards and procedures at New London Hospital regarding medication administration and patient care activities.
• Makes knowledgeable decisions in consideration of the facts and the disease/surgical condition using critical thinking.
• Evaluates the patient’s response to the nursing and/or medical regimen and reassesses and revises the plan of care as necessary.
• Documents care provided using hospital standards.
• Provides education to patients and families based on assessment of learning needs.
• Participates in interdisciplinary planning.
• Creates and monitors a patient environment to ensure it is safe and free from hazards.
• Performs all aspects of patient care in an environment that optimizes patient safety and reduces the likelihood of medical/health‑care errors.
• Assists in minor procedures as requested.

• Demonstrates competence in the principles and practice of surgical asepsis, surgical hand scrub, appropriate gowning and gloving, nursing responsibilities for conscious sedation per training, and sterilization, disinfection, preparation, packaging, and storage of surgical instruments and supplies.
• Demonstrates competence in using special equipment—positioning tables or chairs, electrocautery, insufflation, tourniquet, cameras, warming units, thromboembolic prevention, and microscope.
• Carries out care according to AORN/ASPAN Recommended Standards of Practice.
• Advocates for the patient throughout the continuum of surgical care and raises any concerns regarding patient safety, positioning needs, surgical attire, or sterility of the field.
• Follows the Standards of Practice established for the Surgical Services Department.
• Documents surgical events according to facility standards, including but not limited to event times, staff members in or out of the room, positioning, asepsis and site preparation, instrument and supply counts, specimens gathered, implants and explants.
• Cleans the environment as training before, during, and after cases and at the beginning and end of shifts per AORN guidelines.
• Adheres to surgical attire per AORN and ensures visitors follow these guidelines.

• Graduate from an accredited nursing program with an Associate Degree; BSN preferred.
• Minimum 1 year of medical/surgical or critical care nursing experience preferred.
• Previous OR experience is a plus; training will be provided per AORN guidelines in conjunction with the AORN Peri‑Op 101 Program and a precepting RN.
• Certificate of completion from AORN.
• Peri‑Op 101 program within one year of hire.
• Ability to utilize electronic medical documentation.
• Critical thinking skills.

• Licensed RN with New Hampshire eligibility.
• Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS).
• Basic Life Support (BLS).
• Certified Nurse Operating Room (CNOR).

• Area of interest:
  Nursing.
• Pay range: $38.13/hr - $53.71/hr.
• FTE / hours per pay period: 1.00 (40 hrs/week).
• Shift: Day.
• Job .

Dartmouth Health offers a total compensation package that includes a comprehensive selection of benefits. Our core benefits include medical, dental, vision and life insurance, short‑ and long‑term disability, paid time off, and retirement plans.  for information on these benefits and more:
Benefits | NLH Careers.

Dartmouth Health is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics comply with applicable federal civil rights laws and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, disability, or sex.

We do not exclude or treat people differently on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.