IF I HAD A HAMMER OR nurses are qualified to do any number of jobs, including carpentry.

I don't think I'm alone in wondering some days whether I was crazy to choose OR nursing as a career. But what else would we do? Hey, there are plenty of transferable skills that could get us a foot in the door of other occupations.

• Accountant. The counting and totaling never stops in the OR. Needles, blades, instruments, sponges, hypos, reels, clip cartridges, red loops, blue loops. And it'll all balance at the end of the day. No fudging the numbers here.

• Teacher. All day, every day and every hour, we educate those who walk into our domain. Haven't any of you outsiders heard of sterile technique?

• IT engineer. I may not be able to figure out how to connect the DVD player to the television, but I'm working with high-tech electronics in the OR. The downside: I have to get on my hands and knees to reach the cables. The upside: It's actually a lot of fun to ask people "Is it plugged in?" and then tell them to "Turn it off. Now turn it on again."

• Secretary. There's paperwork to do, even when you're charting electronically. You're answering the phones for surgeons, assisting surgeons, residents, PAs, personal scrub nurses and even scrub techs. Plus, recovery has called 3 times to ask how much longer the case will be. Maybe I should also list psychic.

• Carpenter. One word: orthopedics. There are mallets, drill bits and saw blades. I could at least be the apprentice fetching the tools if I'm not the master blaming them.

• Fitness trainer. Lifting 150 pounds of leg. Running a 50-yard dash for supplies that didn't get pulled. Stretching and reaching for the equipment stacked high on the booms. Jumping and swinging to position the lights and monitors where the surgeon wants them.

• Childcare worker. Face it: Adults act more like children when they don't get their way than children do. At least we can make children take a time out. Just try putting surgeons or anesthesia in a corner.

• Actor. Every day I act like I'm in a good mood. I act like the surgeon I'm assisting is the only one in the whole world. I act like his jokes are as funny today as they were every other time he's told them.

• Dancer. Have you ever watched a circulator at work? It's like a ballet. It's pure poetry in motion to see the "dance of the circulator."

• Chemist. How is this drug going to interact with the million other medications this 150-year-old patient is on? Is it 1 of the 100 drugs she's allergic to, some of which were administered before World War II?

• Court reporter. Just the facts, ma'am. Only the facts go into this chart, even though some EMR programs don't let you put all the facts in.

• Historian. Yes, I know you do this procedure the same way every time. Yes, I know your preference sheet isn't correct. No, I don't know who's supposed to fix that. Yes, I know how long you've been operating here.

• Urban planner. What is the best use of this space? How are we going to fit all that equipment into this tiny room and still fit the patient and a sterile field? We'll need to set some boundaries here to turn this chaos into order.

• Actuary. What's the probability that events that have occurred in this room before (we opened 1 too many sutures, we dropped the ligaclip, the cautery and suction fell off the field) will happen again, and how can we minimize the cost on them?

If only Florence Nightingale could see how versatile we've become. I think we all need a raise.