By Don Sadler
Many perioperative nurses can vividly remember when they first sensed the calling to become a nurse. For Karen Elliott, it goes all the way back to when she was a little girl and got a toy nurse’s kit for Christmas.
“I was fascinated with giving shots, first to my dolls, and then to my brother,” Karen says. “But my brother didn’t much like being my patient.”
Fast forward to college and Karen’s roommate during her first year was in nursing school. Karen says she was intrigued by the stories her roommate told her about nursing. “So, I decided to attend the Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in Memphis, where I got to spend two weeks in a scrub role and put my hands on the Mayo stand.”
In her senior year, Karen did a leadership program in the OR and was hired directly from nursing school into periop services. She first worked in the cardiovascular unit, where she says everyone took her under their wing.
“It was a really good learning environment,” says Karen. “I just loved the structure, the purpose, the consistency and the accuracy in the OR.”
Upon graduation, Karen joined Methodist Hospital in Memphis as an RN in surgical services and an RN circulator, where she later learned the scrub role. A few years later, Karen returned to school to earn a bachelor’s degree in education, which paved the way for her to become the assistant director of surgery at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in 1990.
In 1995, Karen went to work as an RN first assistant at the Memphis Plastic Surgery Group, where her duties included surgery scheduling, pre-op orders, patient preparation and post-op patient care.
“Since they do so much reconstructive work, plastic surgeons think in 3D,” says Karen. “It was amazing to me the impact we had on patients’ quality of life.”
In 2005 Karen joined Methodist Germantown Hospital as the clinical director for surgical services before moving to Colorado in 2012 to become the director of surgical services for Sky Ridge Medical Center, a Level II trauma center with 10 OR suites. She then joined Kaiser Permanente in Denver as the senior manager of ambulatory surgery center before taking a short break from nursing to work at the Keystone ski resort.
Karen was lured back to Memphis in 2019 to work as a professional development specialist at Regional One Health Elvis Presley Level I Trauma Center and Firefighters Burn Center. In this role, she coordinates education and provides orientation for perioperative services. In addition, Karen coordinates student nurse and student technologist rotation, participates in quality and performance improvement projects, and provides opportunities to develop and maintain perioperative staff skills. Karen has also served as a Periop 101 instructor.
“Teaching Periop 101 has been a wonderful experience that has taken me back to the basics,” says Karen, a 45-year perioperative nursing veteran. “As experienced perioperative nurses, sometimes we think, ‘Oh, they should already know this.’ But no one is born with all this knowledge – it has to be learned. Experienced nurses like me need to realize that there’s more than one way to do things, as long as you’re following policies and best practices.”
Helping teach and train staff has been one of the most rewarding parts of Karen’s career.
“It brings me back to baseline and helps me self-reflect on what I need to do better so I can help others become better,” she says. “To me, perioperative nursing is a passion and we should all be open to learning about new ideas. No one can ever say they’ve done every case, because tomorrow there’s going to be a new type of case.”
Karen has been an active member of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) throughout her entire career, at both the national and local levels in Memphis and Denver. She received the AORN National Award for Outstanding Achievement in Perioperative Education: Clinical in 2024.
“I was so honored just to be nominated for this award, much less to receive it,” she says. “It is one of the highlights of my career.”
Another highlight was Karen’s work in helping get surgical smoke legislation passed in Colorado in 2019. “I was fortunate to get to testify about the dangers of surgical smoke in both the House of Representatives and the Senate,” she says. “It was eye-opening to see how the legal process works and the positive impact this legislation has had on nurses and patients. We’re not there yet in Tennessee, but it is one of my missions.”
In 1997, Karen went on a medical mission trip to the Republic of Palau with the Memphis Plastic Surgery Group through the Foundation of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery. “We did a lot of cleft palate and cleft lip repairs,” she says. “It was incredible to see the impact these surgeries had on children’s lives.”
Karen believes that perioperative nursing will continue to evolve, and nurses need to be prepared for this.
“Perioperative nursing is very technical and complex and nurses need to continue building their skill sets,” she says. “Since a lot of nursing schools don’t offer the perioperative service line in their curriculum, we need to actively reach out and try to bring student and graduate nurses into our field.”
A former triathlete, Karen remains very active with swimming, snow skiing and fly fishing.
“Swimming and triathlons taught me the importance of time management and being consistent with timing, which are also important in the OR,” Karen says. “It all ties together.”
She’s also involved with the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Contest. And she attends as many of her four grandchildren’s softball, baseball and soccer games and other activities as she can.
Professional Spotlight Nomination
