P.E.I. nursing milestone allows RNs to qualify as surgical assistants

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The Faculty of Registered Nurses of P.E.I. is on the brink of register the province’s inaugural registered nurse first assistant who may have an expanded function in surgical procedures.

Working room (OR) nurses are already essential to surgical procedure, however on April 5, P.E.I.’s govt council modified the wording within the Registered Well being Professions Act to incorporate registered nurse first assistants or RNFAs.

The extra designation will permit an RNFA to truly have their arms on the affected person, mentioned Sheila Marchant-Brief, CEO and registrar of the Faculty of Registered Nurses of P.E.I.

“OR nurses will usually work within the OR as a scrub or circulating nurse after which they get an curiosity in changing into the primary assistant to the surgeon,” mentioned Marchant-Brief.

“Normally it’s a scenario the place it’s troublesome to discover a surgical first assistant, and so registered nurses are conscious that this can be a designation that in the event that they take a sophisticated course that they might start fulfilling that function, and that’s precisely what’s occurred right here on Prince Edward Island,” she later added.

Registered nurses who’re focused on making use of for an RNFA schooling program will need to have at the least two years of working room expertise and meet different stringent admission standards, mentioned Ron Ryder, spokesperson for the Division of Well being and Wellness in an e mail assertion.

At the moment, RNFAs practise in all 50 American states and most Canadian provinces.

There are at the moment no RFNAs practising in P.E.I., however the school has already acquired an utility for registration from a person who has just lately accomplished an RFNA schooling program, mentioned Ryder.

Good to know

P.E.I. is on the brink of welcome its inaugural registered nurse first assistant to Island working rooms. Among the roles carried out by a RNFA embrace:

• Making ready sufferers for surgical procedure.
• Offering affected person care and assist earlier than and after surgical procedure.
• Administering drugs earlier than and after surgical procedure.
• Making ready surgical instruments and provides wanted for performing surgical procedures.
• Practising surgical procedures that embrace controlling bleeding, draping, dealing with tissue and suturing incisions.
• Performing CPR or different life-saving measures when vital.
• Educating sufferers and households about surgical procedure after-care.
• Conducting post-operative assessments.

Supply: P.E.I. Department of Health and Wellness

RNFA applications are intensive and embrace classroom schooling in addition to 200 hours of scientific observe. Upon completion, the nurse can work to their full scope, mentioned Marchant-Brief

“They’re dealing with gentle tissue, they’re exposing the wound, they’re utilizing devices, they’re suturing, they’re offering hemostasis … and cautery … to cease the blood vessels from bleeding,” mentioned Marchant-Brief, including, “many of the actions the nurse can do, however there are some issues that require a further scope, a further authority beneath the rules.”

That’s why the faculty determined to ask for RNFAs to be added to the Registered Well being Professions Act.

Alison Jenkins is a well being reporter with the SaltWire Community in Prince Edward Island. @AlisonEBC