Experience of working in Theatre or Cardiology?

[ReallyLoveChickens]

Hello all

I’m about to commence work in the NHS as an HCA.

They have offered me a position in Theatre or the Cardiology (coronary) ward.

I’m just wondering if anyone had any thoughts or experiences of these wards? Good points? Bad points?

Thank you

Theatre is very different to a ward

In theatre you’ll be assisting the surgeons - cleaning equipment and passing the correct things to him/her etc

Although watching operations would be incredible I think being on the wards are far better

You’ll be doing lots of obs (blood pressures etc) aswell as lots of personal care. Post op patients, those on monitored beds where they’re connected to heart monitors. 1:1 for those with delirium. Ecgs, cannula removals etc

Good points -
You’ll meet all kinds of different people from all ways of life
You’ll learn about yourself too!
You’ll work with people from all over the world and you’ll gain a better understanding of the paths that other people have been down
Rewarding

Bad points -
Unsociable hours
Understaffed
Underpaid
Stressful

Theatre is hard if your hearing isn’t good as faces covered.

Really depends on whether you like patients awake or not, either way unfortunately you will be a dogsbody.

Thank you very much everyone. Some really interesting points.

Pixxie, I’m sorry to hear you were treated like that. It’s never been my experience though fortunately.

I've only worked theatres in a student nurse role, but from observing the band 3s in theatres, they pretty much did the gopher work--lots of fetching things and mopping and taking out rubbish. I've never seen an HCA scrub in to assist directly with the procedure, though I have worked with one band 4 who was trained to scrub in at a specialist unit (cardiac cath lab). You get more downtime in theatres, but your patients will generally be unconscious.

Wards will give you a good foundation of basic healthcare skills. If you're making this move with the intention of going into nursing, medicine or a therapy role, you'll value those skills. If you're considering an ODP role, or if this is just a job and not a career path, you won't miss the ward-bases skills so much.

Oh, one further consideration--if you're clumsy or generally prone to knock things or drop things, I'd steer clear of theatres. You have to be constantly aware of and skirting round sterile fields, and some of the equipment is so heavy and fiddly, but so expensive. I lack the grace and poise to ever work in theatres permanently.

Great advice, thank you :)

Just bumping to see if anyone else has anything to add..

If you are wanting to progress without training to be nurse there are more opportunities within the theatres. There are band 4's who scrub etc. Which is normally in-house training. On a ward there can be less opportunities to progress although within cardiology there would be things like ecg technicians.
So I suppose it depends on where you see your future.
There is also the consideration do you want to work with awake or asleep patients.

Thank you well, very informative.

To be honest I don’t know if I would prefer sleeping or awake patients as I’ve never done the sleeping patients part. I would like to develop my clinical skills though so maybe cardiology may work for me.