Objective To explore the experience and needs of orthopedic inpatients for pre-hospital examinations led by nurses, provide a reference for optimizing the pre-hospital examination procedures and improve the pre-hospital examination experience of patient. Methods Using the method of phenomenology, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted on 35 patients who attended the Department of Orthopedics of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University from July to August 2018 and had undergone pre-hospital examinations. Colaizzi’s seven-step method was used to encode, analyze, organize, summarize, and refine topics. Results Patients’ experience and needs for pre-hospital examinations led by nurses could be divided into three major sections: attitudes and emotions, individualized pre-rehabilitation needs and pre-hospital examination feelings. Attitudes and emotions included high treatment expectations, feelings of loss, and some patients’ understanding of pre-hospital examinations. Individualized pre-rehabilitation needs included pre-rehabilitation needs with cardiopulmonary diseases, pre-rehabilitation needs with sleep dysfunction, nutritional conditioning needs, and medication safety needs. Patients’ feelings during pre-hospital examinations mainly included complicated procedures and staff attitudes that need to be improved. Conclusion Some links in the pre-hospital inspection process urgently need to be optimized. In pre-hospital examinations, it is necessary to focus on patient expectation management and predictive communication, improve multidisciplinary cooperation, formulate personalized pre-rehabilitation plans, optimize examination procedures, strengthen humanistic care, and improve patient experience.