Surgery Nurse Practitioner

Sometimes, Doctors seem like superheroes, especially at hospitals where Physicians often work more than 50, 60, 70, and even 80 hours a week. With a schedule like that, even the most prolific practitioner needs superpowers to make it through the day. Or at least a helping hand.

As a Surgery Nurse Practitioner, you’re that helping hand — a clinical Robin to a medical Batman — paid by hospitals to assist Surgeons with patient care.

You’re a Registered Nurse, and your duties as a Surgery Nurse Practitioner include typical nursing tasks such as doing physical examinations, recording patient histories, taking blood, administering IVs and injections, conducting diagnostic tests, writing prescriptions, dispensing medications, and educating patients and their families. As a Nurse Practitioner, however, you have more education and more training than most of your nursing peers, which qualifies you to do more, and in many cases act as a substitute Physician. In addition to everyday nursing duties, therefore, you’re often called upon to assist Surgeons in the operating room when they need an extra pair of hands.

Mostly, though, it’s your job as a Surgery Nurse Practitioner to be the Doctor when the Doctor isn’t there: While Surgeons are busy doing surgeries, you’re making the rounds with their patients on their behalf, providing inpatient care before and after their operation so they understand the procedure before it happens and make a speedy recovery afterwards.