Top 12 Operating Room Nurse Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a strong resume as an Operating Room (OR) nurse means spotlighting skills that prove you can think fast, act precisely, and care deeply when it counts most. The right mix—technical fluency, clinical judgment, calm under pressure—signals you’re ready for complex cases and seamless teamwork.
Operating Room Nurse Skills
- ACLS Certified
- PALS Certified
- BLS Certified
- Epic Systems
- Cerner Millennium
- Sterile Techniques
- Patient Monitoring
- Surgical Assistance
- Wound Care
- Hemodynamic Monitoring
- Anesthesia Administration
- Da Vinci Robotics
1. ACLS Certified
ACLS certification confirms advanced training in managing cardiac and respiratory emergencies. For OR nurses, it means rapid rhythm recognition, effective leadership in codes, and confidence when seconds matter.
Why It's Important
It equips you to recognize and treat life-threatening events quickly, coordinate resuscitation, and support anesthesia and surgical teams during acute instability.
How to Improve ACLS Certified Skills
Refresh the algorithms often: Revisit ACLS pathways, drug doses, and post-arrest care so actions feel automatic.
Run simulations: Practice high-fidelity scenarios that stress timing, delegation, and closed-loop communication.
Drill team roles: Rotate through leader, compressor, defibrillator, and recorder positions to sharpen versatility.
Debrief after events: Review what worked, what lagged, and how to tighten next steps.
Track metrics: Monitor CPR quality, shock times, and medication timing to drive improvement.
Cross-train with anesthesia: Align on airway plans, vasopressor choices, and escalation triggers.
How to Display ACLS Certified Skills on Your Resume
2. PALS Certified
PALS certification validates advanced skills for responding to critically ill infants and children. Airway, rhythms, shock, medication dosing—tailored to pediatric physiology.
Why It's Important
Pediatric cases demand different thresholds, equipment, and communication. PALS raises readiness for rapid, precise action when caring for kids in the OR.
How to Improve PALS Certified Skills
Practice pediatric dosing and equipment sizing: Keep quick references and checklists ready in the OR.
Scenario training: Run pediatric code and difficult-airway drills with the full team.
Update knowledge: Review focused guideline updates and incorporate them into local protocols.
Peer review: Discuss pediatric cases, near-misses, and lessons learned at huddles or journal clubs.
Coordinate with pedi anesthesia: Align on induction plans, fluid strategies, and escalation criteria.
How to Display PALS Certified Skills on Your Resume
3. BLS Certified
BLS certification confirms competence in high-quality CPR, AED use, and basic airway support. Foundational. Non-negotiable.
Why It's Important
When deterioration strikes, first actions set the tone. Strong BLS buys critical time and improves outcomes.
How to Improve BLS Certified Skills
Rehearse frequently: Short, regular CPR refreshers beat once-in-a-while cram sessions.
Focus on quality: Depth, rate, recoil, minimal pauses—measure and correct in practice.
Team choreography: Coordinate compressor swaps, ventilation timing, and AED prompts smoothly.
Integrate with ACLS/PALS: Bridge basic to advanced care without gaps.
Self-audit: After codes, review what you did, then refine technique.
How to Display BLS Certified Skills on Your Resume
4. Epic Systems
Epic is a widely used electronic health record platform. In the OR, it supports scheduling, preference cards, perioperative documentation, orders, and team communication.
Why It's Important
Cleaner documentation, faster data retrieval, and tighter coordination mean fewer delays and safer care.
How to Improve Epic Systems Skills
Personalize your tools: Build SmartPhrases and SmartLists for common procedures, implants, and workflows.
Streamline documentation: Map templates to surgical phases—preop, intraop, postop—for speed and consistency.
Use in-system messaging wisely: Standardize brief handoff notes and alerts to reduce noise yet speed response.
Leverage reports: Track first-case on-time starts, turnover times, counts reconciliation, and delays.
Share tips: Create a unit library of shortcuts and best practices; update as workflows evolve.
How to Display Epic Systems Skills on Your Resume
5. Cerner Millennium
Cerner Millennium is a comprehensive EHR suite that supports perioperative documentation, case scheduling, orders, and clinical communication across the surgical continuum.
Why It's Important
Integrated data improves handoffs, reduces transcription errors, and tightens team situational awareness.
How to Improve Cerner Millennium Skills
Tailor views: Customize panels for implants, counts, antibiotics, and time stamps you use every case.
Template smartly: Build concise, procedure-specific notes that cover required elements without clutter.
Enhance interoperability: Coordinate with IT to ensure device interfaces (monitors, anesthesia machines) map cleanly.
Mobile and downtime readiness: Know mobile workflows and downtime procedures cold.
Close the loop: Report pain points; pilot fixes; share wins across the OR.
How to Display Cerner Millennium Skills on Your Resume
6. Sterile Techniques
Sterile technique means building and guarding a microbe-free zone—scrub, gown, glove, prep, and protect the field—so infection never finds a foothold.
Why It's Important
Every breach risks infection. And infection steals healing time, comfort, and sometimes far more.
How to Improve Sterile Techniques Skills
Master the basics relentlessly: Hand hygiene, proper donning and doffing, surgical site prep, and field maintenance without drift.
Standardize counts and transfers: Clear, methodical instrument and implant handling reduces breaks in sterility.
Engineer the room: Arrange equipment to avoid traffic through the sterile field; mark and maintain boundaries.
Audit and coach: Peer checks catch small slips early; quick feedback prevents repeat errors.
Escalate immediately: If sterility is compromised, call it, correct it, document it—no hesitation.
How to Display Sterile Techniques Skills on Your Resume
7. Patient Monitoring
Continuous surveillance of vitals, ventilation, oxygenation, and trends—integrated with the clinical picture—throughout the procedure.
Why It's Important
Subtle changes whisper before they shout. Early detection prevents spirals and keeps physiology steady.
How to Improve Patient Monitoring Skills
Know your baselines: Understand each patient’s starting point and risk factors; tailor thresholds accordingly.
Master the monitors: Alarm settings, artifact recognition, waveform interpretation—be fluent.
Close-loop communication: Announce changes, confirm actions, and time-stamp interventions.
Use checklists: Verify setup, alarms, and backup plans before incision and at critical transitions.
Trend, not just snapshots: Watch patterns over minutes, not moments, to catch deterioration early.
How to Display Patient Monitoring Skills on Your Resume
8. Surgical Assistance
Direct support to the surgeon and team: instruments at the ready, counts precise, field intact, patient safe from preop to transfer.
Why It's Important
Fluent assistance shrinks delays, prevents errors, and lets the surgeon stay locked on the operative task.
How to Improve Surgical Assistance Skills
Anticipate: Know the sequence and be one step ahead with instruments, sutures, and devices.
Sharpen setup: Room layout, equipment checks, and backup plans—set the stage for flow.
Protect the field: Manage drapes, cords, and movement to avoid contamination or tugging.
Practice precision: Pass instruments cleanly, maintain visibility, manage suction and retraction smoothly.
Count with rigor: Two-person, standardized counts at defined points—no shortcuts.
How to Display Surgical Assistance Skills on Your Resume
9. Wound Care
Postoperative wound management that promotes healing, prevents infection, and minimizes complications and scarring.
Why It's Important
Clean technique and smart dressing choices reduce readmissions, pain, and delays in recovery.
How to Improve Wound Care Skills
- Match dressing to wound: Choose moisture management, antimicrobial coverage, or negative pressure as indicated.
- Educate patients: Clear instructions on hygiene, signs of infection, activity limits, and when to call.
- Standardize protocols: Align incisional care with service-line preferences and evidence-based guidelines.
- Monitor meticulously: Document edges, exudate, odor, temperature, and pain; escalate changes quickly.
- Support nutrition and perfusion: Coordinate with the team on glycemic control, protein intake, and offloading.
How to Display Wound Care Skills on Your Resume
10. Hemodynamic Monitoring
Real-time assessment of perfusion and cardiovascular status using invasive and noninvasive data—arterial lines, central lines, cardiac output, and more—interpreted in context.
Why It's Important
The OR can swing physiology fast. Accurate interpretation guides fluids, vasoactive agents, and ventilation to keep organs happy.
How to Improve Hemodynamic Monitoring Skills
Understand the physiology: Know what numbers mean and why they change—preload, afterload, contractility, SVR.
Master the devices: Zeroing, leveling, troubleshooting, and artifact recognition should be second nature.
Integrate data: Don’t chase a single metric; triangulate with waveform quality, urine output, lactate, and clinical exam.
Coordinate with anesthesia: Align on targets, titration steps, and response plans.
Review cases: Post-op debriefs reveal patterns and sharpen judgment.
How to Display Hemodynamic Monitoring Skills on Your Resume
11. Anesthesia Administration
In the OR nurse scope, this means preparing and checking anesthesia equipment and medications, supporting induction and emergence, monitoring status, documenting events, and partnering closely with anesthesia professionals who administer anesthetics.
Why It's Important
Safe anesthesia depends on readiness, vigilance, and crisp communication. Nurses anchor that reliability.
How to Improve Anesthesia Administration Skills
Perfect your checks: Machine checks, circuit integrity, suction readiness, airway adjuncts—verify before wheels stop.
Know the meds: Induction agents, paralytics, analgesics, antiemetics—indications, effects, and adverse signs.
Plan the airway: Anticipate difficulty, prep alternatives, and stage equipment logically.
Communicate deliberately: Use closed-loop exchanges during induction, turnover, and emergence.
Rehearse emergencies: Malignant hyperthermia, anaphylaxis, local anesthetic toxicity—drill roles and responses.
How to Display Anesthesia Administration Skills on Your Resume
12. Da Vinci Robotics
A robotic platform enabling minimally invasive surgery with magnified 3D vision and precise instrument control. The OR nurse coordinates setup, docking assistance, troubleshooting, positioning, and smooth instrument exchanges.
Why It's Important
Smaller incisions. Faster recovery. Less pain. When the system hums, the whole room moves cleaner and quicker.
How to Improve Da Vinci Robotics Skills
Train beyond basics: Simulation, dry-labs, and frequent practice with setup, draping, and docking steps.
Standardize carts and kits: Label, organize, and restock consistently to shave minutes and prevent errors.
Preop huddle: Confirm port plan, patient positioning, instruments, and conversion protocol.
Maintain and troubleshoot: Know error codes, calibration steps, and when to escalate for service.
Own the conversion plan: If a switch to open or laparoscopic is needed, move swiftly—roles predefined.
How to Display Da Vinci Robotics Skills on Your Resume
