Does anyone work in day surgery? Whats it like?

[EachandEveryone]

Is it better than the general wards or just as stressful?

Depends on the hospital staffing levels, but its generally easy as the cases are simple and they rarely stay overnight. Busy but very routinised

How many nights do you do? My friend has applied it looks like mainly hand surgery. He is broken working on general wards for ten years. He said they are 12 hour shifts as well but surely the abuse wont be there!

Anyone else?

Day surgery is varied, no two days the same.

Extremely busy. Very fast throughput of patients.

Lists can be long, not always straightforward.

If you get a vomiter , bleeder or someone in pain they will take up your time and can slow you down.
You will not always have anyone to help out if you have a “side” to deal with and your colleague has their “side” to deal with with patients coming out quickly, you are on your own.

Currently, unfortunately, day case recovery areas (in my Trust) are filled each weekend with medical patients. There are NO beds. This means on a Monday morning the surgery list is cancelled and you will be doing ward work.

Winter pressures are now upon us, so this is a regular occurrence.

Nice but long hours. Feet don’t touch the ground and no escaping ward work.

I don’t think there’s any escaping it in the NHS. Hopefully less abuse and less fetching and carrying to other wards. I think it will be a change this is predominantly hand surgery.