YOU KNOW YOU’RE AN OPERATING ROOM NURSE WHEN

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🏥 It Takes a Special Kind of Nurse to Work in the OR

Operating room nurses are a rare breed. Whether you’re scrubbing or circulating, it demands skill, focus, endurance, and quick thinking. Scrub nurses spend hours on their feet, locked into sterile precision. Circulating nurses? You might as well sign up for a marathon—because that’s the pace of your day.

OR nurses don’t just do a job—they master a highly specialized craft. Most of the skills needed in the surgical suite aren’t taught in nursing school. It takes months of training and at least a year of experience before many nurses start to feel comfortable in the OR. It’s a different world, and if you’re an OR nurse, you know exactly what that means.

đź›  Knowing Your Tools, Staying on Your Toes

You must know your Criles from your Kellys, your Ballentines from your Heaneys, and you better be able to count fast—very fast.

The OR is a place where plans change in an instant. One moment you’re prepping for a routine D&C; the next, you’re dropping everything to open for an emergency craniotomy. And sometimes? You’re at dinner with your family, about to bite into a juicy steak when your pager goes off—for a rectal abscess, no less. Bon appĂ©tit.

👩‍⚕️ How Do You Know You’re an OR Nurse?

Let’s see how many of these ring true for you…

🔹 The Signs You’re a True OR Nurse

  • You anticipate everything. People think you’re telepathic.
  • No one recognizes you without your scrubs, cap, and mask.
  • You communicate with your eyes, even when you’re mask-free.
  • You’re used to being yelled at for making someone wait 30 seconds.
  • People say, “I didn’t know you had hair!” (and you’re not even surprised).
  • You wear pajamas to work—and wear them all day.
  • Talking about pus, blood, and vomit during meals doesn’t faze you.
  • You’ll eat anything in the breakroom but freak if someone breathes near your plate at a restaurant.
  • You “dance” with surgeons and know how to “tie them up.”
  • You’ve heard, “I’ve never seen you with clothes on!”—and it seemed totally normal (to you).
  • You baste your Thanksgiving turkey with a Toomey syringe.
  • You’ve seriously considered straight cathing yourself just to make it through a shift.
  • You don’t know what the rest of the hospital looks like—or how to get there.
  • You anticipate your family’s drink needs… and you hand them straws.
  • When you give someone scissors, you slap it into their hand like it’s standard procedure.
  • You hear someone say, “Oh, S**T”, and your brain kicks into emergency mode.
  • Your kitchen floor? So clean, you could suture on it.
  • You can listen to five conversations at once and know exactly what’s needed.
  • Dishcloths? You clean with lap sponges, obviously.
  • And when lifting anything heavy? You always count to three first.

đź’™ Operating room nurses are more than skilled professionals. They’re multitasking masters, quiet leaders, and patient advocates in one of the most intense environments in healthcare. If this sounds like you—stand proud. You’re not just a nurse. You’re an OR nurse.