Rns working for surgery centers

[Emmaburn]

I am in my first semester of nursing school. I'm sure my mind will change but I have always wanted to work as A nurse in a private surgery setting! Especially for a maxillofacial surgeon. What do rns do? I know they probably rotate pre op and post op. What are your daily duties working in a surgery center? How does pay differentiate from a hospital? Any suggestions for breaking into this field? Thanks!

[roser13, ASN, RN]

All of the RN positions in my ASC require experience. The pre/post-op RN's also rotate into PACU. We are all ACLS & PALS certified. Our pay scale is the same scale as the larger hospital system that owns us.

OR nurses only work in the OR, of course. Some of the OR nurses specialize in an area: ortho, ENT, urology, etc. The surgeons usually want to work with the same nurses, for the most part. Most of our maxillofacial surgeons have their own office RN's who come with them and scrub in, but some do not and utilize our RN's.

[brownbook]

Ditto what roser13 said.

I am confused if you are thinking of working in the office of a maxillofacial surgeon or an ambulatory surgery center?

I (and I assume roser13) work in out patient surgery centers that do all kinds of surgery. It is fun, interesting, (I think easy), good hours.

Working in a surgeon's office is different.

I have never worked in a surgeons office. My gut feeling is they use either PA's, MA's, or CNA's, instead of RN's, but that is my gut talking. Also I am guessing the pay is lower for an RN in that setting, but that doesn't matter if you love your job.

I assume a surgeon in his own office/clinic setting would want a really experienced RN since there is not a lot of back up help like there is in an ambulatory surgery center.