How to Deal With Loss as a New Perioperative Nurse

When we start nursing school, we know there likely will be a time that we will have to face the one thing that we are constantly trying to prevent: death. Depending on your life experience, you may have already encountered death, but you will find that coping with death as an OR nurse is a little different and has unique challenges.  

Seeing the end of someone’s life is a difficult experience regardless of who it is or what their specific connection is to you. Life is sacred, beautiful, and cherished. To see someone pass from this life is jarring to say the least. As nurses, we are educated about comfort care at the bedside during someone’s final days and hours. But in the OR, there is no “bedside.” There is no holding a hand while they breathe their last. There is no comfort care in the OR. 

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