Becoming a nurse

Fast pace

I think it's quite impressive that on an orthopaedic ward of 26 beds you have in average 50 surgeries a week. That means you have between eight to twelve surgeries a day, when the surgeons do regular surgeries all days except on weekends.

Okay I must admit, I don't have any numbers for comparing so far, because it's just about a month ago, I've started working on this ward. Maybe you can help me. What did you make for experiences so far? I think the number will vary quite a bit between different countries. For me, 50 sounds a lot. Furthermore, I must specify that it's a ward where you have mainly patients who come for a planned surgery e.g. hip or knee replacement, surgeries on the shoulder or on the foot. There's only few emergency surgeries. The range of age lasts from 18 up to 90 years,but the average of age is around 65 years. The patients usually stay between one to seven days, dependently which surgery they've undergone. In cases, in which have occurred some complications the patients had to stay longer of course.

On the first day after a hip, foot or knee surgery a physiotherapist instructs the patients how to get up and what to keep in mind by doing so. Sometimes there are some forbidden movements or they are not allowed to give full weight on the leg, which was undergone the surgery.

Patients, who have undergone a shoulder surgery, must hold the shoulder in a specific angle for an ideal healing process. To do so, they get a sort of construct, which fixate the shoulder, so it will stay at the right place. The patients are only allowed to put it off for washing themselves. To enable this, a partner needs to be involved. The physiotherapist explains then the partner the handling of the construct and how to fixate the arm during washing.