A tour of the operating theatres during the Perioperative Services’ open day
One-hundred and four nursing students in their final year of university came to RBWH on two separate days in July to take part in Perioperative Services’ first open day. Some students travelled from as far as Toowoomba, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.
Elizabeth Strathdee, Assistant Nursing Director, Perioperative Services and Sue Firth, Nurse Educator, Perioperative Services spearheaded the event.
“We wanted to highlight Perioperative Services, including the department and the diverse career of being a periop nurse, but we also wanted to ensure applicants understood the role they would be applying for if they chose Perioperative Services,” said Elizabeth.
The day’s events involved a presentation, featuring content from RBWH podcast 5 Things About Nursing, followed by a tour of the department, showing students a day-in-the-life of a nurse in admissions, the operating room and PACU (recovery).
“The students were very engaged, and showed a lot of enthusiasm,” Susan said, “we also received many emails after the event of people wanting to ask more questions or thank us for the day.”
While nursing recruitment is centrally run through Queensland Health, the open day was also a way to attract new nurses to RBWH Perioperative Services.
“It is very hard to find experienced periop nurses, so we need to develop our own skilled and experienced workforce,” said Elizabeth. “We also want people who are passionate about being a periop nurse.”
“A career as a perioperative nurse is an exciting, dynamic and diverse career. It is also very different to anything the students would have learnt at university, unless they’ve done it as part of their placement.”
As a large hospital, RBWH offers graduate nurses a range of different specialities to assist with building their careers, however, it is also the immensity of the hospital that may also deter potential nurses.
“We wanted to give people a realistic picture of what working at RBWH is like. We spoke about the diversity of patients we have here, including high acuity and emergency surgeries, and the opportunities for upskilling and career development, and then we also spoke about shift work and parking. We wanted to give them the whole picture.” said Sue.
The straightforwardness and insights that the day offered were received enthusiastically by the students and feedback from the day included requests for more tours in different hospital areas. One student’s feedback said, “I think you’ll find the undergrads that attend a tour and then apply for your hospital/field will be the ones who want to stay and grow.”
For other areas wishing to host a similar event, Elizabeth and Sue recommend staggering the arrival of the attendees and holding different sessions.
“We had some great help from 12 Perioperative Services staff who were equally engaged,” Elizabeth said.
Prior to the event Elizabeth and Sue sought endorsement from their service lines and the Director of Nursing and Midwifery, as well as Executive Director Louise Oriti at a Brief the Boss session. They then sent out emails to universities in southern Queensland and notified security of the students’ arrival.
“Overall, the day was really positive,” Elizabeth said, “we will be doing it again in July next year — in time for the Queensland Health nursing recruitment, which begins in August.”