Surgical Nurse
Jason Kesling, RN > Springfield Regional Medical Center
By KEN MOSIER
For What2Be
A placement test at Sinclair Community College showed Jason Kesling that nursing was a good career choice for him.
“So that is what I chose,” the Dixie High School graduate said. “My aunt and my grandmother were nurses.”
Kesling, a graduate of the nursing program at Sinclair, is now the orthopedic team leader in the surgery center at Springfield Regional Medical Center’s High Street campus.
“Orthopedics is just my charge area,” he explained. “I am also involved in general surgery.”
Working in the operating room is different from working on the floor although the necessary degree is the same.
“When you get down here, you have to learn certain things that other nurses on the floor wouldn’t know,” Kesling said. “That is why working down here is sort of a specialty.
“In school we were basically trained to work on the floor — we weren’t trained to work in surgery,” he continued while adding that each nurse in the unit has to go through an orientation period — sort of on-the-job training — to learn the procedures of the OR.
He said an operating room nurse could be performing in two different roles.
“One role is I am scrubbing,” he said. “(As the scrub nurse) I am assisting the doctor with instrumentation — handing him instruments, assisting him with retraction, draping out the legs or extremities or abdomens if I am in general surgery,” he explained. “I hand him the instruments and do everything I can to help him.”
On the days when he is not scrubbing, Kesling could be working as a “circulator.”
“The circulator is a nurse — always,” he said. “They are officially in charge of the room. You are in charge of the patient, positioning him/her correctly and having all the supplies that are needed — if the scrub needs more supplies, you go get them.
“You are also helping with the anesthesia any way that you can and you may get the patient prepared for surgery. You make sure everything is sterile and done the correct way,” he continued.
Kesling said that on a typical day of surgery, he will arrive at 6:30 a.m. He will then get the supplies that are needed and see if there is any last-minute instructions from the doctors. “I then maybe go and check on the patient to see if they are heavy or if there is some other problem that we might anticipate in the room.
“I make sure that I have the right team members in the room and go into the OR about seven o’clock and set up my case on the back table,” he continued. The back table is one that has all the instruments, drapes and anything else that is sterile. Between surgeries, Kesling takes care of his charge duties or may confer with surgeons about upcoming cases.
For those contemplating a nursing career, Kesling says to choose the field for the right reasons.
“Make sure you want to do it. Don’t just do it because you think you will make a lot of money,” he said. “Do it because you care about patients or you want to help people.
“School is very hard and, if you don’t care about what you are doing, you won’t make it through or you won’t be happy if you do,” he said.
