3 Tips to Tailor Your OR Nurse Residency Program

If you are looking for a way to boost your new nurses’ confidence, critical thinking skills, and collaboration abilities, look no further than the ORs at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., where Annabeth Pardue, MSN RN NPD-BC, shaped a unique OR nurse residency program for new graduates.

Research suggests new graduates thrive when they participate in a transition to practice program during their first year as a nurse. Pardue felt this need to thrive was even more true for nursing students in school during the pandemic. Especially because they didn’t have the chance to gain the much-needed clinical skills and critical thinking that can only come with hands-on experience. “Our facility’s Nurse Residency Program is robust, but it didn’t include perioperative nurses,” she explains.

So, Pardue tailored an OR nurse residency program to fit the unique needs of her smaller, specialized facility that annually selects one new nurse graduate to join her OR-specific transition-to-practice residency program.

Her efforts are proving valuable. The first OR nurse resident who started in a pilot of the program in March 2022 is thriving as an RN circulator in the department, and the 2023 OR nurse resident just started the program.

Learning from Success

Last week, Pardue shared her award-winning poster with secrets to her residency program success at AORN’s annual conference. We caught up with her at the meeting to get some additional tips for periop educators looking to launch their own OR-specific nurse residency program.

Tip #1: Provide Unique Periop Knowledge Within the Hospital Culture

As the nursing professional development specialist for Nursing Surgical Services, Pardue was able to meet with appropriate stakeholders, obtain buy-in, and develop periop-specific learning. She also ensured that her OR nurse resident could participate with the facility’s Nurse Residency Program cohort so it would help to foster a connection to the broader hospital community.

Tip #2: Bridge Didactic and Hands-on Learning

Thinking broadly, Pardue shaped a unique learning approach that grouped didactic knowledge learned through Periop 101 curriculum with related clinical skill development. For example, her resident completed the module on sterile technique just prior to shadowing a scrub tech.

The OR nurse resident completes didactic training alongside clinical orientation, completing Periop 101 education modules independently. With one resident, she finds it makes more sense for their workflow to keep the resident at the bedside, in the OR, while completing modules during downtime.

To help the nurse resident gain confidence, precepted practice is organized in a tiered approach to build foundational skills that can be directly applied to more complex procedures. For example, tier 1 precepting covers simple cases such as central line removal and gradually builds up to tier 2 cases such as central line insertion and then on to more complex tier 3 procedures such as tracheostomy.

Tip #3: Document Your Progress in Shaping the Program

As you work through each step in creating your own residency program, Pardue advises taking notes that are clearly documented to help you remember your process. Being able to keep detailed progress notes helps validate when modifications need to be made and gave her evidence that things were working or not working.

In her poster, Pardue created a detailed schematic that illustrates her progress with shaping each step of her OR nurse residency program, from first conducting her literature review to the final steps of program graduation.

Pardue’s work along with one hundred other perioperative peers are available through the AORN Expo Virtual Pass. The on-demand option provides a virtual poster gallery, clinical education sessions, and keynote talks.