Job Description
The circulating nurse’s duties in the operating room are performed outside the sterile field. The circulating nurse is responsible for managing all nursing care within the operating room, observing the surgical team from a broad perspective, and assisting the team to create and maintain a safe, comfortable environment for the patient’s surgery. The circulating nurse ensures that all members of the surgical team perform in a united effort. The perioperative RN is dedicated to the patient during that patient’s entire intraoperative experience. By employing critical thinking, assessment, diagnosing, outcome identification, planning, and evaluation skills, RN circulators direct the nursing care and coordinate activities of the surgical team for the benefit of the patient, whose protective reflexes or self‑care abilities are compromised by the procedure. These critical nursing functions of the RN circulator are not delegable in the operating room.

Assessment
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