Registered Practical Nurse – Perioperative Nursing

This 1-semester graduate certificate offers Registered Practical Nurses the skills to become a part of the surgical team, working with surgeons and anesthesiologists in an operating room setting. The program was developed to allow students to continue working while studying:

• In the first 14 weeks students learn theory through online material
• Two weekly online synchronous evening lectures, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, are recorded for those who are unable to join
• Three intensive weekend (Sat-Sun) labs, one each month during the semester, will take place in the Perioperative Nursing lab at the Sutherland Campus in Peterborough to develop and practice hands-on skills
• The design of the Perioperative Nursing lab at Fleming is specific to the fundamental knowledge required as a scrub nurse or circulating nurse
• The 14-week theory and labs are followed by a 160 hour preceptorship in an operating room, arranged by Fleming based on your top three choices of where you would like to practice.

Registered Practical Nurses (RPN) will advance their nursing skill in the operating room to be a member of the sterile team, in the role of scrub nurse, assisting the sterile team (Surgeon and Surgical Assistant) during the interoperative phase of the surgical experience. This will include preparing surgical instrumentations specific to surgical cases, assisting with instrumentation and the handing of surgical equipment to the sterile surgical team, ensuring sterility throughout the surgical case, prepping and draping the surgical patient while under anesthetics, and monitoring hemodynamics for patients during surgical procedures.

Through this program and with clinical placements in a working operating room, RPN nurses will become proficient in the understanding of surgical consciousness, develop an understanding of anatomy specific to surgery, learn surgical instrumentation and their specific uses in surgery, learn proper passing of instrumentation in the sterile field, develop understanding of the needs of the anesthetized patient, and learning the importance of surgical counts and medications used for the perioperative patient.