The new graduate in the operating room

New graduate nurses today come to their first positions in nursing with varying knowledge bases and minimal clinical nursing skills. Gone are the days when new graduates begin functioning fully in a budgeted position on day one of employment. Mastery of psychomotor, cognitive, and affective skills necessary for nursing practice must be acquired through experience in the work situation. The more complex the clinical setting, the more stressful is the period of learning. The O.R. can be a highly stressful place. The need for anticipation, planning and organization to provide efficient care with meticulous attention to detail is coupled with the need to perform smoothly numerous technical skills. Safe, humanistic care cannot be implemented unless the nurse is also able to assess each patient's individual biopsychosocial status, and identify his unique nursing care needs. In order to learn to cope with this level of complexity, the neophyte nurse must be provided with a planned, supportive experiential learning situation that also provides the time necessary to achieve a beginning level of mastery. The program in Basic O.R. Nursing described here was one attempt to provide such an experience for new graduates.