I am hoping to switch specialties from med-surg to surgery center preop/pacu nursing. What types of interview questions should I expect?

why do you want to work in this area? current patient population caring for? Telemetry or not? current workload and drip experience? what current manager would say about you? type of ehr? are just a few questions

I would work in an ICU first to get more experience before you do PreOp and PACU. You will need critical care skills when working in the PACU. There are many types of patients that you may PreOp and Recovery such as patients on ventilators, cardiac patients coming from the cath lab that may be on drips and there are no beds in ICU because the hospital is full and patients will be staying in the PACU. How are you with the pediatric patients? Your medical and surgical background will also help but you will have to brush up on education and be familiar with medications that are given in the PreOp and PACU settings as well as the types of anesthesia. You will be required to care for patients that are intubated and need to be on ventilators and kept sedated. You will need to be familiar with sedation and what to do when a patient "fights the ventilator" but must be kept sedated to protect the airway such as a radical neck surgery for cancer. A good book that might help you as a guide is called "Drain's PeriAnesthesia Nursing: A Critical Care Approach." I am a PACU nurse and this is a good reference to help you. It is pricey in cost but worth it as I learned a lot while reading it. You will certainly learn more time management in PreOp as the ORs want these patients ready and on time to go into the OR. Good IV skills and lab draws are needed here. You will need to make sure everything is in order before you hand that patient off to the OR nurse. Hope this helps.