Meet the President of the National Association of Orthopaedic Nurses, Mary Jo Satusky, Barbara Kahn,  nurse clinician at New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery, and our “Get to Know Nurse” Mary Anne Kenyon, Nursing Director for Orthopaedics at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Join us as we talk about how they each got started as an orthopaedic nurse.

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Jamie:                         Mary Jo, why don’t we start with you and I’d like to ask you how you started as a nurse? What drew you to the nursing profession to begin with?

Mary Jo:                      Well, my mother was a nurse. So I’m kind of second generation from that. I’ve actually been a nurse for 36 years and did a variety of roles of nursing. I worked at Med-Surg. I did some Coronary Care. I worked in a urologist office. I did some Obstetrics and Out-patient surgery. Then back in 1995, I got into orthopedics when I went to work there. My husband’s job had moved us around a bit. I was offered orthopedics or coronary care and I didn’t know anything about orthopedics so I thought it might be a good learning experience, something new. I went to work at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and they were willing to give me a chance. I really have to say that getting into orthopedics ended up to be kind of a turning point in my career. I realized I had found my niche after being a nurse for twenty years. I ended up getting certified in orthopedic nursing. It was the impetus for me to return to school to get my bachelor’s degree. I really became a professional. I became very involved in the hospital. We had shared governance. Then I joined the National Association of Orthopedic Nurses and now I’m president. Orthopedics really has spoken to my heart.

Jamie:                         I really think it’s amazing how you have this passion for nursing and I see this in my own experience as a nurse as well as everyone else’s – most other nurses I talked to their passion as a nurse is there, but when they find that thing that really clicks for them it becomes really something even more special.

Mary Jo:                      Yes, go from having a job to having a profession.

Jamie:                         Barbara, what about you? Can you tell us a little bit about your background as a nurse?

Barbara:                     Sure. I had an issue as a child where I have something called “discoid meniscus” which is your cartilage or meniscus is C-shaped and mine was disc-shaped and as a kid I required to have – I had surgery on both my knees at age 7 and at that time they didn’t have arthroscopy. So I was in the hospital for a week to have a cartilage taken out but at seven you kind of remember these experiences. I always said that someday I was going to improve the care that was given to orthopedic patients. So that’s where the desire to be a nurse came in but as well the orthopedics – because I think as a young child I was always going to the orthopedic surgeon, I had issues with my knees that kind of was a big thing when you’re seven and you’re in the hospital and all these things. Therefore, I just developed a desire to learn more and more and more. At first, when I went to college, I got a degree in kinesiology which is the study of human motion. I always knew that I was going to combine this with a nursing degree and stay on orthopedic track. Everything that I’ve done with orthopedics has – I’ve been a floor nurse. I’ve done research. I’ve gone to the national meetings for the past almost ten years.