You are a Guardian Angel: Part I

You are a Guardian Angel.

But let me first explain that everyone is an angel. Not in some religious sense or even a literal sense. But the concept of the word angel – someone who has exemplary virtue. Now place yourself in context, your education, licensure, and now perioperative training. Now your mission is to guard the space of the operating room. Perhaps you’re scrubbing today, and your space is technically only the sterile field.

Hold your space, hold your emotions, guard the room and keep the simplicity of the operation away from the complexity of humans. You are an angel, and this is a tough calling.

You are responsible for the chatter in your own head as much as you’re responsible for every interpersonal connection in this room. Everyone has their own chatter, so being receptive to them is as imperative as being receptive to your own expectations and limitations. Everyone and everything in that room is now your responsibility.

You are the guardian. Now act like one.

You are a leader by default. Your patient, though he (respectfully read he to mean any gender identification) is your customer, is also entirely under your influence and control. His emotions are based on yours, his physical comfort yours to influence, and his fate upon your hands.

If I’m scaring you, I’m glad. This job is not without some tremendous situations. You may not take this lightly and proceed. If you want to be good, I need you to want to be great. Excellent service and dedication is the minimum.

Anyone selling you less does not understand the magnitude of the position.

You are the guardian angel for the room, for eight hours, for as long as you remember each patient. I know that it is a hefty goal and certainly a fearful pursuit.

But if you put in the time, work, and dedication, the art and science of perioperative nursing as the guardian angel is not so difficult to imagine.