Registered Nurse - Operating Room - First Assistant

About the role

The VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System is recruiting for a Registered Nurse - Operating Room - First Assistant. The Registered Nurse - Operating Room - First Assistant will function within Perioperative Nursing Service at the VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System.

Responsibilities

• Demonstrates competence in practice and decision-making, deliberate planning, and critical thinking skills.
• Integrates knowledge, skills, abilities, and judgment and is self-directed in goal setting for managing complex situations.
• The focus is beyond the self to the evolution of systems thinking by synthesizing knowledge to solve problems that result in demonstrated outcomes.
• Copes with and manages competing priorities.
• Evaluates others, coaches, and mentors others, and demonstrates leadership skills through collaborative efforts.
• Functions in an expanded perioperative nursing role. When performing delegated medical functions, First Assist RNs are practitioners who are agents of the supervising physician(s)/independent licensed practitioner(s) who are responsible for the First Assist RN's actions within the agreed upon scope of practice. The supervising physician/independent licensed provider is to direct and review the work and practice on a continuous basis to ensure that appropriate directions are given and understood, and appropriate care is rendered.
• Possess the necessary knowledge, judgment, and skills specific to the expanded role of First Assist RN clinical practice.
• Maintains knowledge of current Association of peri-Operative Registered Nurses (AORN) Standards, VHA Directives and service level standard operating procedures.
• Performs intra-operative functions including, but not limited to: positioning the patient, preparing and draping the surgical site, administering local anesthetic, providing exposure and retraction, providing hemostasis; utilizing electrosurgical cautery (ESU), bipolar and ultrasonic devices, suture ligation, hemostatic agents and argon beam, use and handling of surgical instrumentation, tissue manipulation, dissection, suturing, and stapling, making the skin incision or stab wound for laparoscopic surgery or drains and placement of trocar (based on State Board of Nursing) for laparoscopic access, robotics insertion and removal of instrumentation, securing drains, closure of wounds and application of dressings, including wound vac therapy, application and removal of casts and splints, harvest of vein and arteries for bypass conduit, cleansing the surgical area, including superficial, subcutaneous, muscle and fascia, bone and abdominal and pelvic cavities, removal of surgical drains (chest tubes, knee drains).

Requirements

• English Language Proficiency: No person shall serve in direct patient care positions unless they are proficient in basic written and spoken English.
• Education: Graduate of a school of professional nursing approved by the appropriate accrediting agency and accredited by one of the following accrediting bodies at the time the program was completed by the applicant: The Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) or The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE); OR Individuals attending a master's level bridge program in nursing who have completed coursework equivalent to a bachelor's level degree in Nursing may have opportunity to become registered as a nurse with a state licensing board prior to completion of the bridge program. Upon achievement of a State license, the individual may be appointed on temporary basis and later converted to a permanent appointment upon successful completion and graduation from the bridge program. (Reference VA Handbook 5005, Appendix G6); OR In cases of graduates of foreign schools of professional nursing, possession of a current, full, active, and unrestricted registration will meet the requirement for graduation from an approved school of professional nursing to warrant an appointment as a Nurse who has completed an associated degree/entry level Nursing education program. Credit for foreign nursing education higher that associate degree/entry level requires a formal degree equivalency validation from a recognized equivalency evaluation accepted by VA such as International Consultants of Delaware (ICD).
• Licensure: Current, full, active, and unrestricted registration as a graduate professional nurse in a State, Territory or Commonwealth (i.e., Puerto Rico) of the United States, or the District of Columbia.
• Experience: Experience functioning in complex surgical cases including but not limited to general surgery, GYN, orthopedics, urology and robotics; BSN; CNOR certification; At least 2 years of current OR experience; 2 years of scrub RNFA experience.

Qualifications

• Basic Requirements: English Language Proficiency, Graduate of a school of professional nursing, Current, full, active, and unrestricted registration as a graduate professional nurse in a State, Territory or Commonwealth (i.e., Puerto Rico) of the United States, or the District of Columbia.
• Nurse I, Level I: An Associate Degree (ADN) or Diploma in Nursing, with no additional professional nursing required.
• Nurse I, Level II: An ADN or Diploma in Nursing AND 1 year of specialized nursing experience equivalent to Nurse I, Level 1 ;OR a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) with no additional professional nursing experience required.
• Nurse I, Level III: An ADN or Diploma in Nursing AND 2 years of professional nursing experience in which one year is equivalent to Nurse I, Level 2; OR a BSN and 1 year of professional nursing experience equivalent to the Nurse I, Level 2; OR a Master's degree in nursing (MSN) and no additional professional nursing experience; OR a Master's degree in a *related field with a BSN and no additional professional nursing experience.
• Nurse II: A BSN with 2 years of professional nursing equivalent to Nurse I, Level 3; OR an MSN with one year of specialized nursing experience equivalent to Nurse I, Level 3; OR a Master's degree in a *related field with a BSN and one year of specialized nursing experience equivalent to Nurse I, Level 3; OR a Doctoral degree in Nursing with no professional nursing experience; OR a Doctoral degree in a *related field with a BSN with no additional professional nursing experience.
• Nurse III: An MSN and 2 years of specialized nursing experience, one of which is equivalent to Nurse II and meets all dimension requirements for Nurse III; OR a Master's degree in *related field with BSN and two years of specialized nursing experience, one of which is equivalent to Nurse II and meets all dimension requirements for Nurse III; OR a Doctoral degree in Nursing with and one year of specialized nursing experience equivalent to Nurse II and meets all dimension requirements for Nurse III; OR a Doctoral degree in a *related field with a BSN and one year of specialized nursing experience equivalent to Nurse II and meets all dimension requirements for Nurse III.
• *Note: Foreign education programs/degrees are not creditable as related degrees.