Nursing on OBGYN.net

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Barbara Nesbitt: "Hi I'm here at AAGL, and I'm with Eileen Young and Laurie McDermott. I've known Eileen Young for a long time, for a couple of years anyway, and I met Laurie in a fun way, at a wedding we went to in Dallas. But anyway, the reason we're here is we're going to start a new section on OBGYN.net, and it's going to be for nurses, women that work in health care and in the ob-gyn field. So Laurie, you and I had talked about this, you had some good ideas, tell us about them."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "Yes, AAGL has a sub group that's called AGLOR and that's for the operating room personnel. It's a great forum to network and have educational meetings specific to operative laparoscopy, operative hysteroscopy, and for personnel to come from around the United States, and since this is a international meeting - the world, to come and share their knowledge and find out how we can make it better for the patients, ourselves, and our physicians."

Barbara Nesbitt: "So what are your thoughts on this? Have you been to any of the meetings?"

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "I have been to some of the meetings, I actually moderated one of the sessions this morning. I bring a little bit different perspective since I don't actually actively work in the operating room. I work for a company so I have a little bit different experience; I get to see a lot of different people. There are definitely a lot of needs out there that can be met not only at organizations like this, but certainly the Internet brings it to them much easier than it is for nurses to travel to meetings such as this. This is really like the crme-de-la-crme to be able to come to a meeting such as AAGL, AORN, or AST. Not everybody can afford the time or afford the travel to get to those things so I think the spot on OBGYN.net will be a great tool for all of us."

Barbara Nesbitt: "I was a nurse, I didn't work at it too long but we all have medical backgrounds, whatever level somewhere. Do you think that it would be possible for us to get a group of nurses and medical care providers together that would send in enough information for us to get this nursing section going and filled with material?"

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "Absolutely."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "Absolutely, yes, and have a chat room, forum, or a topic of the month or week."

Barbara Nesbitt: "Good idea."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "Getting out through the organizations through ARN, AST, and local hospitals. It seems like hospitals are now becoming chains - they're big conglomerates. You can pass it through their Intranet to find out that there is a place where you can talk about it. You can find out information and share that knowledge because you'll have O.R. people and they're going to want to talk to you about how they do it, and they're quite proud of it. It's an excellent way of extrapolating information from other areas. As Eileen pointed out, not everybody gets a chance to travel and have a wonderful opportunity to come to seminars."

Barbara Nesbitt: "And listen to these doctors."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "And this would be wonderful, and it's also a great way of people finding out that there are places to go to."

Barbara Nesbitt: "Now we also want to include nurse practitioners because they're kind of in the middle there. I think as a patient, you look at them like they're not the doctor, but in a lot of cases they are your main care provider."

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "Exactly, they can be like the first line, and I think the opportunity that this type of forum will give us will allow nurses that belong to various organizations. I belong to AON and AAGL, Laurie belongs to AST, and someone else might belong to other types of other nursing organizations that we all have a similar interest in at some point in time. We may not share the exact same interest all the time but if we have this forum that we can come to and meet with our peers, it will just benefit all of our practices."

Barbara Nesbitt: "We've been wanting to do this for a long time. I think you and I talked about it last year, you have to do what you have to do, but the time has come. I really think that by the new millennium I want to see nursing at OBGYN.net up there, and we'll come up with a name. But it's for women who deal with female patients, and that's where we'll all be and that's all the areas."

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "The other audience that we may not normally attract is physician office nurses because they're not exposed to other types of nursing organizations."

Barbara Nesbitt: "I worked in a doctors office, and you just go to work and go home. Now with so many procedures being done in an office based situation, rather than the old days of everybody went to the hospital. We just had three doctors here that were talking about office based procedures in the millennium. Those office nurses are not going to be, and I don't mean this to make fun of myself, but it's not going to be like what I did ten or fifteen years ago working in a doctor's office. These are going to be skilled, technical people that will be working in a day surgery type atmosphere, won't they?"

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "We would hope so."

Barbara Nesbitt: "Could you see this as an education for those people?"

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "Absolutely."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "Absolutely, they have to have something to bridge that. They want to give good care to their patients and to their physician to get that satisfaction that you've done a good job, and you haven't caused harm to the patient. But this is knowledge that you just don't pick up, it's acquired, it's accumulated, just like their expertise on running the office, meeting that side of the patient and their needs. The surgery starts before they come to the operating room. There is a lot of knowledge that I don't have because I'm in one segment of their plan of therapy, I'm in the operating room, and they bring something to the table."

Barbara Nesbitt: "That's right."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "That explains certain - how shall I say - phobias, fears, or anxieties that the patient has."

Barbara Nesbitt: "And they're doing patient training."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "Exactly, they're their first line on patient education. They're the ones who make the initial relationship with the patient when she comes. They've established that's a nurse they call on the phone when they have a problem - can I speak to the nurse, I need to get in and see doctor. They talk and she gets what's going on so when she goes to her physician, he knows what's happening."

Barbara Nesbitt: "I like to use the word "good" physician like there's a bunch of bad, I don't mean it, but a good physician that has a good office nurse - especially if he's doing procedures - they compliment each other. They make each other's life and the patient's life so much easier."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "Exactly."

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "Exactly, it's that nurses responsibility to triage the patients, and talk to the patients and determine - does this patient really need to be seen today, can the patient be seen later today in the afternoon, do they need to be seen immediately, can I give them some counseling on the telephone, should I order some tests before they're even seen? Things like that, that you can triage the patient, make them more comfortable, and also set things up so that when they do see the physician, things move along quickly and are resolved quickly."

Barbara Nesbitt: "I see it as a win-win situation because doctors really like nurses, and I think nurses really like doctors. I see it as a natural fit at OBGYN.net.

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "It is."

Barbara Nesbitt: "Thank you, Eileen."

Eileen Young, R.N., CURN: "Thank you, Barbara."

Barbara Nesbitt: "Thank you, Laurie."

Laurie McDermott, C.S.T.: "Thank you, Barbara."

Barbara Nesbitt: "And we're going to work on it, we'll get it done."