While the heart surgeon is responsable for the surgical procedure and for the state of health of the patient, the operating room nurse is the responsible professionist for perioperative nursing care. In this complex and organized reality, the nursing care it can be divided into three different moments :
pre-operative nursing care begins when the patient is taken over by the staff of the surgical unit and ends with the start of the cardiac surgery ;
intra-operative nursing care is the period of stay of the patient in the operating room and the surgical act itself;
post-operative nursing care begins after cardiac surgery. In the end the patient is transferred to intensive care unit still in a state of anesthesia.
In all of these steps work together three different nursing figures, which are always in constant update and each has specific roles.
The instrumentalist nurse is in effect an element of the surgical team . It mainly deals with intraoperative assistance to the user and works closely with the surgeon. It is part of the “sterile” staff because it comes into contact with the operative field and handling surgical instruments .
The operating room nurse and the nurse of anesthesia belong to "non sterile " staff because they perform activity in the operating room . They are responsible of accepting the patient in the room, ensure that the needs of the surgical team during the surgical procedure , the control and monitoring of vital signs of the patient, the transfer of the patient in intensive care at the end of the surgical procedure . This figures cooperate with the heart surgeons , the anesthetist , the technicians and auxiliary workers. In the operating room the nurse, as well as having a role technicist, does not neglect the relationship and the relationship with the operand.
