Canadian OR Nurses - Scrubbing

#1rnstudent · Jan 26, 2008

How come ya can't take a course on your own (I mean external to the hospital) and then go work someplace else, assuming your hospital won't offer the course? Depending upon where you live, you can do the courses in person or with distance ed, through community college. I was going to go that route. You just need to make sure that you can get your consolidation period in your hospital and that you can afford the insurance fee the hospital may require you to pay. Something worth looking into. HTH.

NewGradRN2007 · Jan 28, 2008

Thanks for the suggestion. I have considered taking additional training on my own outside of a US internship that teaches circulating, just because I'd like to know how to scrub.

What I'm wondering is, is scrubbing even a necessity in Canada or are scrub techs (or the equivalent) used heavily here too?

ronarmynurse · Jan 29, 2008

As a Scrub Nurse, Circulating Nurse, and Nurse Manager of Surgery I can tell you it is not easy as a nurse to get in the scrub scene. The market is being flooded with scrub techs from quick production (I wouldn't call them colleges but they are) colleges. The Association of Operating Room Nurses (www.aorn.org) recommends a staffing ratio of about 60% RN and 40% Scrub Tech. Its a cost effective means for hospitals because they do not have to pay techs as much as RNs because they are not licensed. My recommendation to you is to become a circulating nurse, learn it well, make yourself invaluble to an organization (remember there is a nursing shortage that is growing) and then negotiate scrubbing. Stay after work and learn to scrub on our own time. Be creative

NewGradRN2007 · Jan 30, 2008

Thank you for the advice. Both of my recruiters have said the OR's would accommodate my desire to learn scrubbing if they were able. I think I'm persistent enough that I can learn it if I want to though.

I thought there were a number of Canadian OR nurses on this forum too. Can any advise on the requirements to scrub and use of techs in Canada?

Thanks again!

newname · Jan 31, 2008

take perioperative nursing course in Canada, many college offer it. one semester, full-time. they teach scrub and circulating.

Good luck!:redpinkhe

#1rnstudent · Feb 1, 2008

I have to know both roles where I work, but if we have an RPN in the room then I automatically am in the circulating role. It depends who has been assigned to what rooms each day. If 2 RNs are assigned to a room then they negotiate or take turns or something. Personally I prefer to scrub but I know this will not often be the case for me. I still love working in the OR. :) Best thing to do would be to contact the manager for wherever you plan to work and ask them how it works in their site. HTH

maritimegirl · Feb 10, 2008

I'm an OR nurse at a hospital in New Brunswick, Canada, and we do train new grads in the OR at our hospital. Sometimes we send them to Toronto for 6 weeks to do their OR training at George Brown College, and other times we just train them in our OR. I also did some travel nursing in the US, and RN's rarely scrub down there, but we scrub all the time in NB. They don't seem to use as many techs in Canada as they do in the US.

maeyken · Feb 14, 2008

We don't have scrub techs around here (Ontario) that I know of. RPN's in the OR are only allowed to scrub, but we don't have that many RPN's (maybe 10%?), so as RN's we often scrub. Usually newer OR nurses scrub and the more senior RN circulates, but it really depends on the day!

I would highly recommend taking a Canadian course, if you want to scrub.