Today is ODP Day - #ODPDay! So I was approached by Carrie Biddle,   regional Head of Allied Health Professionals  for the South-west region, to help raise awareness of this important profession and hopefully encourage some new people to think ‘this is for me!’ 🍋💡🍋

But what is an ODP? 🤷🏼‍♀️

An Operating Department Practitioner.

Works in operating theatres  …

Still none the wiser?

Join us as Anitha Rego, a theatre nurse from Torbay, and Sue Robb, an ODP from Gloucestershire, discuss their respective roles and talk about their career paths and opportunities. Sue started out as a hospital porter!

🍋💡🍋 Lemon lightbulbs:

• An ODP is a crucial member of the team in theatres
• Language can be unhelpful. ODP. “We do get confused with the outpatients department”!
• There was more flexibility during Covid and teamwork was strong.
• Multi professional teams – with the patient in the centre!
• The career path can be a bit unclear for students – more opportunities than you might think!
• The human side – smiling and being human, despite the masks and gowns
• It’s harder to get feedback – because the patients are often asleep!
• See the whole person, not just the condition – people might be confused after the anaesthetic, not just because they have dementia!
• The human touch. Sometimes holding a hand says it all
• Kindness matters
• Creativity rocks - Kevin Duff – an ODP used creativity – a poem made into a video – to get people learning about his role
• One size does not fit all. Don’t ask an ODP why they don’t want to become a nurse?
• Nurse Terri Porrett was asked why she didn’t want to become a doctor!
• Recovering from the pandemic. Important project around waiting times by LSBUL Health systems innovation lab
• Doing what was necessary for the situation. Mask fitting!
• Smiling with your eyes! Despite the face masks
• Innovation in the pandemic. A shout out for Rachel Grimaldi, founder of CardMedic
• The theatre cap challenge! Humanising health care.
• Theatre teams are friendly and often have fun.
• Become an ODP

And ( in one hours researching for this episode, I came across this amazing video poem produced by Kevin Duff, and ODP himself, for ODP awareness day 2021. I love it.

Kevin Duff – if you get to read this – perhaps I could embed the poem, properly attributed of course, into the actual podcast. Anyway, here is the YouTube link as the video is fantastic too! https://youtu.be/lxYZ7bkodhU

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