Perioperative Nursing: Specialist Nurses in Surgical Care

Running head: PERIOPERATIVE NURSING 1
Case study: Perioperative Nursing
Name
Institution

PERIOPERATIVE NURSING 2
Specialist nurses are dedicated to a particular area of nursing. Their work is to care for
patients suffering from long-term conditions and diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and chronic
heart failure. They offer direct care and offer education to patients on how they can manage their
diseases. In most cases, people prefer to hire a specialist nurse to attend to their patients instead
of having the patient hospitalized (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). 2016).
The perioperative nurse is a specialist nurse who is involved in surgical care. Perioperative
nurses work closely to the surgical patient, their family, and other health officers. They help in
sterile instruments and items to be used for nursing. They are also responsible for managing
nursing care by observing the surgical team from abroader perspective. Safety of nurses and
patients in the hospital is important. Emotional safety originates from within us. Just like any
other person, patients and other medical personal require both physical and emotional safety.
Physical safety for patients is important since most of the medical activities are carried out
physically (Lindwall & Von Post. 2018). Accidents are one of the physical related issues that do
occur. An accident can be of any kind either fire or water. Therefore, for a patient, there must be
a safeguard from any physical damage or accidents. The patients who have undergone surgery
when perioperative nurses are attending to them should ensure that they do not get involved in an
accident that will cause them more pain. First aid box is important for any physical safety. It is
granted when a patient is involved in any accident physically; first aid is of most important
because it will help to ease the pain as the patient is taken for more attention from the specialist.
These safety-related issues do cut across both patients and medical professionals.
Human beings are emotional beings. It is widely known that emotional safety is
important in times of war, disagreements, and divorce. However, emotional safety is important at

PERIOPERATIVE NURSING 3
all times for both patients and health specialists. Trauma is one of the emotional safety-related
issues that is not only linked to emotions but also physical (Australian Commission on Safety
and Quality in Health Care [ACSQHC]. 2019). When a specialist and in this case perioperative
nurse is involved in trauma this may result in poor performance in the workplace. Life
threatening diseases can lead to trauma for most patients and therefore it is important to
safeguard the patients from such trauma by encouraging them they are going to get well soon
(Schwam. 2018). Love is also an emotional safety-related issue it ensures that patients get it right
that they have people that care for them and hence they are not worried about their health.
Reporting any violent encounter is one of the strategies to maintain physical safety in the
hospital both for the patients and the perioperative nurses (Spry, 2016). Reporting will ensure
that there is awareness of that act and the health professional find a better way to attend to the
same patients or how to continue working in the same environment. Identification of the main
risks and preventing the same risk from happening (Stobinski, 2018). There is a legal
requirement that confines how a perioperative nurse carries out their activities. Some laws
govern the responsibilities of the perioperative nurse.
Common law determines that the health care providers provide health care with the same
standards as stated in the constitutions and the legal requirement of the health. Statutory law state
that anyone registered with any health care body when done anything contrarily to the law
should be charged as a criminal. The perioperative nurse responsibility is to ensure that the
concern patient records are well obtained, recorded and documented in the health record of a
respective hospital. In case an injury occurs, it will be easy to show that the nurse did comply
with the policy and procedures of the institution. The perioperative nursing responsibility is to
maintain the highest level of competency in the nursing practice. They are obligated to maintain