DON’T PLAY OUR REQUIEM

Ludmila Davis, R.IV

“Operating room nursing has gone to Hell!” This was one surgeon’s spontaneous answer to the question “What do you think about operat- ing room nursing?” By censor’s edict, the in- dictment would have fallen to the cutting room floor, but for me it retains its stinging impact. In the modern jargon of today, he “socked it to us” and the poignant implications of his state- ment are worthy of examination.

Hell is considered to be a strong word having a connotation of finality. Some applicable syn- onyms which suggest themselves for Gehenna are: bottomless pit, limbo, abyss; all devastat- ingly shocking words which imply extinction. The thought occurs: by whose consignment are operating room nurses relegated to the status of the departed, defunct, “irreversibly dead.”

From the religious aspect, some choice of will is involved in the determination of one’s destiny. I t seems that thus far, and unwittingly, operating room nurses have allowed interven- tion into their professional fate by forces which seek not only to alter our image but to erase it. One can almost hear the dirt clods falling on the coffin of our specialty.

Ludmila Davis. R.N.. director of the operating room at Palo Alto-Stanford Hospital in California, is a graduate of Junior College of San Francisco and Children’s Hospital Training School for Nurses. She holds a B.S. degree and Certificate in nursing education from the University of California. Mrs. Davis has worked in the OR at Mount Zion in San Francisco and at Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame, California, where she was the director of OK and EK.

Is i t possible that we, who alone perceive the marvelous depths of our role, will concede by inaction, to suicide our cause and so to perish, vanish, dissolve and be no more!

Usually, when one contemplates his demise it is customary to reminisce of the precious blending of the bitter and sweet essences of life.

Let’s apply this technique to the practice of our specialty. We’ve come a long way in our irreplaceable experiences.

Beginning with the mid-nineteenth century the practice of surgery moved into an enlight- ened era. Nursing was on the threshold of reform prepared to approximate with skills the nuances of asepsis and the more daring surgical interventions made possible by the discovery of anesthesia. Centuries of groping culminated into triumphs as the predatory secrets of dis- ease began to yield to the surgeon’s knife.

The emergence of the highly skilled operat- ing room nurse was mandatory to the swift pace of surgical progress. From the beginning her place has rightfully been designated as at the elbow of the surgeon, at the side of his patient. Advancement to sophisticated levels has not obviated her role or lessened her capac- ity for devotion; it has, in fact, obliged and compelled her to exceed all previous commit- ments to serve well. That vital interval in which she correiates her complimentary skills with those of the surgeon is the high point of the patient’s hospitalization; without it there would be no occasion for convalescence.

Operating room nurses visualize new hori-

50 AORN Journal

zons and greater challenges for our specialty. As research yields new surgical artistry, we are ready to provide the usual optimal settings and service. And now at the highest point of our careers it appears our futures are in jeopardy. A generation gap in educational philosophies por- tends that we must abrogate our responsibilities as being obsolete and antiquated. It has been said that a new category of worker, “in much shorter periods of time can be prepared to do all of these technical functions and can prob- ably do them better.”’

The overtones of a requiem for the operating room nurse can be heard in this concept.

As we face the eventual termination of our careers, will we then be denied a personal heir to whom to leave our legacy? To whom will we leave our thrill of competence, gratification in accomplishment, deep awe and reverence of functioning creation, which surpasses textbook illustration as it beats, secretes and performs in myriad ways to sustain life? Who will reverber- ate and respond to them? One stands very close to God while at the elbow of the surgeon; a precious commitment not lightly carried or transferred. Provisions for rightful heirs brings up the matter of a will; or do operating nurses choose to die intestate? Worse still, with power of attorney surrendered to poor counsel? Will our wealth of knowledge be distributed at probate to no one in particular?

In life, wisdom dictates the documentation of a testament of one’s own volition; with discretion, choice, option and intent to have one’s own way and pleasure. For as Joyce Kilmer said, “Things have a terrible permanence when people die.”

This is a time of extremity; a point of climax. Public disenchantment with the nursing profession is subtly evident. A renaissance in general nursing attitudes is indicated and oper- ating rooms must pull together all their re- sources to preserve our distinctive contribution. Let us not lament past misrepresentation of our cause. With resolution, determination, zeal and devotion, we will insure the perpetuation of our particular breed. It is probably true, as phi-

losophers say, “that life must be understood backwards.” But they forget the other pro- position that it must be lived forwards.

Since nursing educators have lost contact with our needs, we will assume this role in our own professional niche. At the hospital and university level, we will be heard by enlisting the aid of vocal surgeons who have an interest in our mutual cause. We will become articulate and with perseverance bring pressures to bear on necessary revisions in curriculum to include the basic and meaningful experience of operat- ing room nursing.

In our suites, whatever their size, the post- graduate course must be reactivated. Operating rooms must extend an invitation to the nurse temporarily retired from her specialty for a season of homemaking and child-rearing. She hesitatingly awaits our summons if we assuage her fears by kindness and sustain her with intensive orientation and inservice. If need be, we must advertise, beat the bushes, rediscover our lost contemporaries and endow them with new confidence in their abilities. It has been said that, “There’s many a tune in an old fiddle,” and she may play first violin in our orchestra some day.

Operating room staffs must bestow liberal gifts of patience on the student. They must impart knowledge generously to the new gradu- ate. Only if they do these things is our specialty worthy of continuance. By positive action we can achieve a complete reversal of all former morbid allusions to our doubtful futures. These are life-giving defibrillations to the waning heart and spirit of the operating room nurse. Further- more, they are the only bequest through which she will be perpetuated.

We need not assume a final posture of despair for our bequest is life and, “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”*

REFERENCES 1. Mildred Mary Montag, R.N., Professor, Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York, D and G film, “Operating Room Nursing Today.” 2. Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, “Maxims and Missiles.”

January 1970 51