OK, well back to my "strange road" to nursing! Let me explain what I mean by that - - As a young child in the 1950's I came to learn about my greatgrandfather who was a physician and surgeon in Cleveland at the turn of the century. Seems he liked to travel a lot, so I'm not quite sure exactly when he took care of his patients. From a young age I saw antique surgical/medical instruments. Grandma still had much stuff in the house, including the old glass medicine bottles. There was one long narrow closet behind the fireplace in the parlor that had some old stethoscopes and stuff hanging from hooks - creepy, but fun. One of my favorite book titles was "Obstetrics and Gynecology - and Other Disorders Peculiar to Women and Children". Now there's a topic for you - - peculiar??

Fast forward to the 1960's when I spent a summer as a candy striper. They started me out in admissions (boring), moved me to floor duty (even more boring), and then on to the lunch counter they had at the time. Let's just say that food service was not my forte! But I handled the cash register with ease (now remember folks, this is before electric or computerized registers, you hand pushed the amounts with number keys and had to figure out the sales tax in your head). I was bored!! Finally, they moved me to help in the emergency ward - now that was more my style. Having had over 300 stitches myself over the years, blood didn't bother me. I even got to help transport to the morgue and get a tour. I realized that nursing in the 60's didn't do any of the "fun" stuff I enjoyed, so I decided it was not for me.

Fast forward to the early 70's. I'd graduated from high school and was attending college studying business (marketing) and continuing with my music studies (vocal performance - had studied and trained for many, many years). Nursing students of the time had the no make-up or decent hairdo rules (I was into good grooming and proper fashionable attire). And, besides, nursing students had really lousy hours as "hospital slaves" while in school. That was definately not the route for me, so business remained my area. I graduated with a B.S. in Marketing and went out into the world of business.

A few of years go by and I somehow end up in the administrative end of an Otolaryngology research department at a medical school. I found that I had quite an interest in medicine - surgery fascinated me. My most favorite procedure to watch was the radical neck dissection. We also did cochlear implants and work with Meniere's Disease. I taught our department's introduction to Otolaryngology for Phase C medical students, and assisted in the adminstration of a temporal bone banking program. Some of the surgeons I worked with felt I should go to medical school (no way!), and somehow I decided to become a nurse (much to their dismay).

So, off I moved to Texas and entered a program for people with degrees to fast-track for a second one. Just over two years later I had a B.S. in Nursing. During my time as a student my advisor was an old Orthopedic operating room nurse and somehow we clicked and found that Orthopedics was my "cup of tea" (after all, I made a name plaque with a router as a very young child). I interned in the operating room and then worked at a Level 1 trauma center. Years go by, I've done Orthopedic trauma, Orthopedics and Orthopedic OR nursing.

When I started working at my current hospital in 1989, I had been back in Ohio for about 10 months. I had an accident two weeks after returning to Ohio and had to have my right leg reconstructed. Since I couldn't start in the OR when I was supposed to, so "they" put me on the Ortho floor until a position opened up in the OR. Once there I had to learn General (including Vascular, Transplant, Bowel and General). Neuro, Plastics, Oral before they let me stay in my world of Orthopedics and stick to total joint replacements.

I have worked at "Cleveland's Premiere Medical Center" for 20 years this year. For those of you living in my area you will understand the commercial slogan - for those of you out of this area it is NOT the Cleveland Clinic!! There is nothing quite like working with dangerous power tools on the human body. If you've never worked with a Midas Rex drill, you've missed out! And, the 2 pound mallet is one of my mainstays!

My main area of practice is Total Joint Replacement of which I am the RN, ACN (Advanced Clinical Nurse) Service Manager for that area. For hospitals in our consortium level we rank second in the number of total joints done per year. Primarily we do total hip and total knee procedures (primary and revisions). We also do total, hemi and reverser shoulder replacements and hip hemiarthroplasty procedures on a regular basis. We briefly did total ankles, but that surgeon has left the hospital and no-one else is doing them at this time. On occasion we also do total elbow replacements, but not too often.

I was finally able to turn over the reordering of the 4000+ implants to the hospital supply chain department two years ago so I have a lot less administrative work in my day.First had Todd, now Cassandra is there to get us what we need.

Our primary total joint system is Zimmer, but we also use DePuy and Stryker joints. In 2008 we performed 1138 total joint replacements. My maximum team size is 7. I currently have four RNs and two techs - and one RN who will be training once she completes her neuro rotation. I will have a full compliment to my team for the first time in about 8 years.

We work in laminar flow rooms wearing the battery powered helmets for that "spacesuit" look. We have frequently been referred to as "hemlet heads" by those unfortunate people who work in non-Orthopedic rooms! I've gotten rather fond of wearing my helmet, and find wearing the basic face mask a real pain. Besides, the suits make the patients feel like they're "going to the moon" or some such thing. I rarely leave the world of total joints as we are doing about 30 a week (Mon - Fri). I can do general, plastics, neurosurugery, oral surgery and such, but I really don't like to go there!

For those of you just dying to know - these are some of the parts of the body I work on daily. The pictures on the left are of a normal hip and knee joint, and the ones on the right shows you the arthritic changes that cause us to have to replace them.