| Course | NR 103 Transition to the Nursing Profession |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Nurse interview write-up |
| Length | About 1,150 words, 4 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | BSN (pre-licensure) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 103 Week 5
Interview Write-Up: An Operating Room Circulating Nurse on Advocating for Patients Who Are Asleep, and the Answer I Did Not Expect
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 103: Transition to the Nursing Profession
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Interview Write-Up: An Operating Room Circulating Nurse on Advocating for Patients Who Are Asleep, and the Answer I Did Not Expect
Who the Nurse Is, and Why I Chose Her
I interviewed a registered nurse who has worked as a circulating nurse in the operating rooms of a 300-bed community hospital for 11 years, after four years on a surgical floor. Her name and the hospital's are left out, as the assignment requires. We spoke for 45 minutes on a video call on a Saturday afternoon.
I chose her because the operating room is the one setting I could not picture a nurse's role in. On a hospital floor, I have seen what nurses do. In the operating room, I assumed the surgeon and the anesthesia provider did the important work and the nurse fetched supplies. I also chose her because most of her patients are unconscious for most of the time she cares for them, and I wanted to know what caring for someone who cannot speak looks like.
What I Expected Before I Sat Down
I wrote down my expectations the night before. I expected her to say that the hardest part of her job was the technical load: knowing hundreds of instruments, the steps of each procedure, and the settings of every machine. I expected her to describe her role mainly in relation to the surgeon. And I expected her to say that she had little contact with patients, since they are asleep.
Theme 1: Advocacy Happens Before the Patient Falls Asleep
Her first surprise for me was how much of her work happens in the ten minutes before anesthesia. She meets each patient in the preoperative area, confirms identity, the procedure and the site with the patient directly, checks allergies, and asks what the patient is worried about. "That's my only conversation with them," she said. "After that, I'm speaking for someone who can't." She described a woman scheduled for a knee replacement who mentioned, almost in passing, that her other knee had been done at another hospital and that she had woken with a sore shoulder. The nurse took that as information about positioning, and she padded and supported the shoulder with particular care.
She described her role during surgery as watching everything the patient cannot: positioning and pressure points, warmth, the count of every sponge and instrument, the sterile field, and whether the procedure matches what the patient agreed to.
Theme 2: The Time-Out Is Her Job
Before the first incision, the team pauses for a time-out: everyone stops, and the patient's name, the procedure, the site and other safety checks are confirmed aloud. In her operating rooms, the circulating nurse leads it. The World Health Organization checklist, of which the time-out is part, was studied in eight hospitals across several countries, where deaths after surgery went from 1.5% to 0.8% once it was in use, and complications during the hospital stay from 11.0% to 7.0% (Haynes et al., 2009). She knew those figures, and she said they are the reason she does not let the time-out be rushed, "even when a surgeon is standing there with the knife in hand."
Theme 3: How She Learned the Role
I asked how she learned to do this work, since my program has only a few days of perioperative content. She said she learned it in a year-long orientation with a preceptor who had circulated for 25 years, and that most of what she learned was not in any manual. Her preceptor taught her to walk around the table before every case and look at the patient from each side, to notice a hand hanging off the arm board or a heel resting on hard metal. She taught her to keep the count board where the whole team could see it, so that a missing sponge was everyone's problem and not a private worry. And she taught her to say the patient's name during the time-out rather than only reading the chart label, because hearing a name reminds a room of tired people that there is a person under the drapes.
That answer also surprised me. I had thought of the operating room as the most technical setting in nursing, and in some ways it is. But the habits she described were habits of attention and speech, not of equipment.
The Answer That Did Not Fit
When I asked what the hardest part of her job was, I expected an answer about technical knowledge or long cases. Her answer was: "Saying stop." She described the moment, perhaps once a month, when something does not match: a consent form that lists a different side from the marking, a count that is one sponge short, an instrument tray with a broken sterility indicator. Each time, she has to stop a room full of people, sometimes including a surgeon who outranks her and is in a hurry, and say that the case cannot go on until the problem is resolved.
"The technical stuff, you learn," she said. "Saying stop to someone who's annoyed with you, in front of everyone, for a patient who'll never know you did it, that takes years." She told me that in her first year she once let a count discrepancy go after a surgeon said the sponge was "obviously in the trash." It was found in the trash. But she said she has never let one go since, and that the sponge being found did not make her decision right.
This answer changed my picture of the role more than anything else in the interview. I had assumed the operating room nurse's value was in knowing things. She described it as being willing to act on what she knows when it is uncomfortable to do so.
What I Take From It
Two of my three expectations were wrong. The technical load is real, but it was not what she found hardest. Her role is defined less in relation to the surgeon than in relation to the patient, whom she represents to the rest of the team. And she has more contact with patients than I thought, but it is compressed into a few minutes that she treats as the most important of the case.
The skill she described, stopping a process when something is wrong, is not limited to the operating room. On any unit I will work on, there will be moments when a colleague or a provider wants to move on and something does not match. The interview did not make me want to be an operating room nurse. It made me want to practice saying stop.
References
Haynes, A. B., Weiser, T. G., Berry, W. R., Lipsitz, S. R., Breizat, A.-H. S., Dellinger, E. P., Herbosa, T., Joseph, S., Kibatala, P. L., Lapitan, M. C. M., Merry, A. F., Moorthy, K., Reznick, R. K., Taylor, B., & Gawande, A. A. (2009). A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity and mortality in a global population. New England Journal of Medicine, 360(5), 491-499. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa0810119
Reading the NR 103 Week 5 instructions
For Week 5 you interview a registered nurse and write up what you learned about professional nursing practice. Instructions usually supply or suggest interview questions on education, career path, daily work, challenges and advice, and ask you to keep the nurse and facility anonymous. The write-up is normally a few APA pages and should cite something that places the nurse's experience in a wider context. The write-up should do more than repeat answers; it should show what you made of them. Many sections reward reflection on how the interview changed your view of nursing. Ask the nurse's permission before quoting, and check whether your section wants a list of the questions attached to the paper.
How this NR 103 Week 5 example is built
The paper introduces the nurse by role, years and hospital size, without names, and explains why the operating room was chosen. Three written expectations come next: technical load, a role defined by the surgeon and on-the-job learning. The answers are grouped into themes rather than question order. The first covers the ten minutes before anesthesia, when she confirms identity, site and allergies. The second shows her leading the time-out, tied to Haynes and colleagues' 2009 surgical safety checklist study. The third covers a year-long orientation. A section on saying stop quotes her directly, and the close checks which expectations proved wrong and what carries into other units.
Where the points sit in the NR 103 Week 5 rubric
Rubrics for interview papers usually reward a clear introduction of the nurse and setting, coverage of the required questions, analysis or reflection, use of a source and APA mechanics. Coverage counts, but the larger share tends to go to what the student made of the answers. This sample earns that row by stating expectations in advance and testing them against what the nurse said. Grouping answers into themes shows analysis rather than transcription. The surgical safety checklist source places one nurse's habits inside published evidence. Anonymity is often a requirement with its own points, so the hospital and the nurse stay unnamed. Clean quotations, attributed and introduced, protect the writing row.
NR 103 Week 5 help from the desk
The weakest write-ups read like a transcript, question then answer, with no thinking between. Another common loss is a quotation dropped in and left to speak for itself. Some papers confirm every expectation the writer had, which suggests the questions invited agreement. Naming the facility or the nurse breaks the anonymity rule many sections enforce. A paper with no outside source lets one person stand in for a whole profession. If the only nurse you can reach is a relative, say so and still keep the interview formal. Send the required questions and your notes, and a custom NR 103 interview paper can be organized around your nurse's answers.
Get a NR 103 Week 5 example written to your instructions
The conversation is the one part nobody can supply for you, since those answers came from a real person in a real break room and only you were sitting there. Send the prompt, the rubric and your rough notes from the meeting, and a custom NR 103 example is built around them and returned inside 24 to 48 hours, the first one free.
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NR 103 Week 5 questions, answered
The only nurse I can reach is a relative. Is that acceptable?
Usually yes, and many sections say so, but check yours before booking the time. A relative brings one problem worth managing: the conversation drifts toward reassurance, and reassurance produces nothing to analyze. Ask about a shift that went badly and about the part of the work they would not choose again, then write from those answers rather than from the encouraging ones.
How many quotations should the paper carry?
Few and short. Two or three lines of the nurse's own words, each doing something no paraphrase could, is the usual proportion in a paper of this length. Quotation blocks longer than that shift the balance from your analysis to somebody else's speech, and the rubric line is nearly always about what you concluded rather than about what you collected.
Do I need to ask permission first?
Ask, and say plainly that the conversation is for a class assignment and that the write-up will not name them or their employer. Sections differ on whether anything is submitted in writing, so read yours. Recording is a separate question and needs its own yes, given before the recorder is running rather than mentioned once it is.
Where can I find a free NR 103 Week 5 sample paper?
The finished Week 5 write-up of an interview with an operating room circulating nurse, grouped into themes with her answer about saying stop, is reproduced in full here.
What source supports the NR 103 Week 5 interview paper?
It cites Haynes and colleagues' 2009 New England Journal of Medicine study of the surgical safety checklist to show why the time-out the nurse leads matters.