Need for Operating Room Nurse Residency Program A Review of Literature

Previous studies have indicated that in other specialties, nurse residency programs have been largely successful in seeking to stem nursing shortages. However, very few studies have attempted to evaluate as well as assess the effectiveness and success rate of nurse residency programs in relation to operating room nurses. It is important to note that there is a looming crisis in the horizon in relation to the shortage of operating room nurses (Brown, Belgard, Washington, and Grueso, 2017). The effects this continued shortage could have on perioperative nursing could be dire. Towards this end, the relevance of assessing the relevance of nurse residency programs in seeking to address this concern cannot be overstated.

In the words of Zinn, Guglielmi, Davis, and Moses (2012), “as experienced nurses leave the workforce, new graduate nurses are the supply pipeline to acute care hospitals” (653). This is an assertion echoed by Finkelman and Kenner (2014). As Zinn, Guglielmi, Davis, and Moses (2012) further point out, assuming that perioperative nurses takes at least 1 year to develop proficiency in their role, it would be wrong to assume that graduates fresh from medical school will “transition into practice...

Thus, there is a need for a transition setup such as the graduate residency programs to enable new operating room nurses to transition effectively. McDonald and Smith (2012) are of the opinion that nurse residency programs are effective evidence-based graduate nurse retention interventions. In the words of the authors, studies have clearly indicated that “turnover rates among new graduate nurses could be decreased and job satisfaction could be increased by implementing a residency program” (McDonald and Smith, 2012, p. E19).
Sadler (2018) is of the opinion that one of the solutions that ought to be explored in seeking to fix OR nurse shortage is ongoing training and education. The fact that undergraduate programs do not include the principles of perioperative practice has been a significant challenge in operating room nurse staffing (Sadler, 2018). In the words of Bakewell (as cited in Sadler, 2018), “this makes it difficult to hire new nursing school graduates into the perioperative setting.” The proposed solution, according to Sadler (2018) includes the implementation…