There is little if any, room for error and near misses in the operating room (OR). A very thin veil of chat and chill separates the general wards from the OR. Perhaps best suited for those that careen more to the introverted way of life and a little obsessively compulsive, OR nursing only comes close to critical care nursing.

That perhaps explains why neither of the two specialties appealed to me. I am a very chaotically organised person. I know I keep things in a particular messy way, but I know my way around my hot mess. I keep things in safe places and then have to get a map to show me where my safe place is. In fact, I surprise myself once in a while by discovering a penny or a pound in previously forgotten purses and handbags. Oh yes, I love me some surprises. Ha ha.

I love talking to my clients and patients and having them verbally talk to me. Theatre and the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) did not seem to entertain extroverts that much. Consequently, I gravitated towards renal nursing where I have more room for talk. That is what I thought until I met Phylis Kuria.

Phylis and I met through a WhatsApp Group for Kenyan nurses immigrating to the United Kingdom sometimes last year. Her vibe and mine resonated so well that we started chatting on the side. Phylis is not your typical introvert. She is an assertive ambivert (my diagnosis of her person) who flourishes under and over pressure.

We met in London just before the first Lockdown in the United Kingdom. It turned out that we both trained at Kenyatta National Hospital School of Nursing. As she took Perioperative Nursing, I focused on Nephrology Nursing. She was a few classes ahead of me.

Phylis has worked as a perioperative nurse now for two years in the UK and I requested her to write a few thoughts on the subject as it is an attractive field of nursing in Kenya. The following is her take.

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Being a perioperative nurse in the UK is quite an exciting career. My name is Phylis Kuria and I am a trained perioperative nurse from Kenya practising in London. When I first moved here from Kenya, even though the layout of the theatres was quite similar to what I was used to, I cannot begin to describe the differences in practice that I observed while working.  

First of all, forget about the green drapes we have at home (the reusable ones that go to Central Sterile Services Department/CSSD) here they use single use sterile packs made for each surgery. For example, if you are doing laparoscopic cases you have laparoscopic sterile single use packs with everything you need from drapes to sharps to some with camera covers and the likes.   

If you are doing gynaecological cases, the same happens where you’ve got drapes designed for your cases to include lithotomy drapes and such. Moving on to other things like arranging your trolley to draping, most surgeons have preference cards just like back at home but when it comes to arranging your set, some NHS Hospital Trusts like the one I work in you prefer that you arrange them in similar fashions. This makes sense because in case something happens to you and you have to leave or changeover, your replacement is not confused on the arrangement of your tray and instruments.

When it comes to specialities, now this is a whole other ballgame!!!it is SOOO diverse it makes one feel you really need to study more. So back at home some procedures we just read in books but hardly saw them in practice. Now I am a neurosurgery nurse, and I cannot begin to explain how diverse neurosurgery is. We have neurospine and the brain which are both quite expansive and with a wealth of requirements in both. Not forgetting surgeon-specific preferences which also play a huge role in preparation of surgery and the doing of the procedures.

 Here nurses have to get their A game out and be quick learners. As soon as you are on top of several things you will be able to master the major procedures. So, what you learnt in your perioperative books (Care of the patient in Surgery) you need to revisit it all and even get an up-to-date copy. Needless to say, that was what I had to do to survive. Besides, Google is a good teacher. What is not in the books especially the company instruments, you can find most of it online. Befriend YouTube videos as well. May your screen time be productive time.

 In short keep reading/studying. Just because you specialized does not mean that that is the end of learning. It just means you opened a new door, and you cannot keep standing at the door. You need to walk in and find your way to a new door within that door.

Apart from being a perioperative nurse working in the United Kingdom I also like training English for those who want to come here. We all know that IELTS is the first step to coming here. You can find me on…. http://www.nursesatyourdoorstep.co.uk and we can take it from there.

From one nurse to another,

Phylis.

For the lay person, the CSSD is a unit within a hospital where all surgical instruments are taken for sterilization. Sterilization is a process where instruments are subjected to different high standard procedures of killing all types of germs on them. Killing all germs from the surfaces of instruments makes sure that we do not transfer any infection to a patient during operations or even a procedure like childbirth.

I hope this helps nurses interested in this field to know that there is room for their own growth and career development.