3 real reasons to love plastic surgical nursing
You can expect the unexpected every day on this job.
Plastic surgical nursing is on a roll, with 15.6 million minimally-invasive and surgical procedures performed last year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Reconstructive procedures were also in high demand with 5.8 million in 2014.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgical Nurses (ASPSN), a diverse range of practice options and settings await including adult or pediatric reconstruction, skin care, aesthetics, burns, craniofacial procedures, post-anesthesia care and nurse injectors who administer fillers or injectables such as Botox or Juvederm.
You can work in the hospital operating room, surgical center or a private practice in this ever-growing field of plastic surgical nursing, and here’s what you can expect.
No two days are the same
“I see everything,” says ASPSN President Marcia Spear, a nurse practitioner at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. “This discipline isn’t gender specific. It’s across the lifespan for young and old, from head to toe and it’s not just one body system such as the heart or kidneys.”
Spear recently gave a talk to the National Student Nurses Association titled, “The Beauty of It All.”
“This is about more than just the face,” she says.
Cosmetic surgery is an important component of the plastic surgery specialty, and “it certainly can enhance someone’s quality of life,” says David Song. associate dean of continuing medical education and chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at The University of Chicago Medicine, Song adds that cases can run the gamut from facial problems such as a child’s cleft palate to hand and foot surgery, rebuilding jaws, major abdominal hernia repair, wound repair, microsurgery of the breast and even face transplants.
You’ll be working in a happy setting
You’re not going into work in an ICU or oncology ward. “It’s a more positive environment,” says Ivette Machado-Lopez, director of nursing at Miami Plastic Surgery. With 26 years’ experience—six in pediatrics before plastics—she says, “When I get to work, I know I’m not going to have a sad day.”
Her patients come for happy reasons: to feel prettier and feel better about themselves. “I feel like mine is a customer service position,” she says. “Patients pay out of pocket, no insurance, and I want to be friendly and make them feel like family.”
Any kind of surgery makes most people nervous. So when she hires other nurses there, she wants them to be warm and know how to make patients feel comfortable, “Like they’re going to be OK and like they’re a VIP. It’s not like a hospital here, where everyone is rushing around. We can take more time with them.”
You can have a life outside of work
Machado-Lopez says that after her son was born, she worked regular shifts at the hospital but was on call. It wasn’t ideal for a new mom.
“Now I don’t have to be on call,” she says. “I have better hours and don’t work holidays.”
You’ll be a part of a much bigger picture. “This is a very broad specialty with so many important facets that demonstrate what health care delivery is all about,” says Song.
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