Meet Jessica McAdam, Registered Nurse First Assistant with Perioperative Services-Operating Room
“CHEO is the community that gave me a permanent home,” says Jessica, a registered nurse (RN) with CHEO since 2009. Growing up in a military family, Jessica spent her childhood moving across North America. But today, she considers the CHEO community her home base and rather than move from city to city, like she did as a child in a military family, she expands her nursing skills while staying in one place.
Over her 15 years at CHEO, Jessica has been an RN in inpatient surgery, an RN in the operating room (OR) and a nurse educator. Keen to take on new challenges and grow in her practice, Jessica went back to school in 2023 to become a Registered Nurse First Assistant (RNFA). In April 2024, she became CHEO’s very first RNFA, meaning Jessica can scrub in and assist surgeons in surgery by suturing, retracting to provide visualization of the surgical area, and more.
This new role, both for Jessica and for CHEO, is helping alleviate surgical wait times. Having additional first assistants available to work in the OR, a role primarily filled by surgical residents, fellows, or additional surgeons, increases the number of surgeries CHEO can perform. It also frees up surgical residents, fellows and other surgeons for important tasks as required.
“The OR is the place I was meant to be, it’s home,” says Jessica. But even though she comes from a long line of nurses and nurse leaders, Jessica wasn’t always certain nursing was the right profession for her. It took her several years of university, program changes and the flip of a coin to end up where she is today.
But working in pediatrics, and in health care, that was a simple decision. “Kids are more fun,” says Jessica, “We get to play games walking down the OR hallway, we get to share in the excitement of Star Wars character visits and get big smiles from 'the small things' like a sticker.”
Today, Jessica is proud to work with a dedicated team to provide the best possible care to children in the Ottawa area and beyond. For Jessica, this includes inspiring other nurses to consider the RNFA program, providing education on pediatric patients to our regional surgical partners, and doing global outreach such as traveling to Chitrakoot, India with Dr. Claudia Malic as part of a surgical team from CHEO.
CHEO is filled with driven and committed nurses like Jessica. Join us.