What hospitals utilize scrub nurses?

Specialties Operating Room

Published

I'm in my last semester of my ASN program and LOVE the OR. I've heard from several people (and surgeons themselves) that hospitals are using scrub techs more and more and scrub nurses are being phased out to circulate more than anything. I'm really hoping to find an OR job when I graduate that allows me both the opportunity for scrub and circulate. Would any of you lovely nurses care to share your hospitals and if they use scrub nurses? Given privacy concerns, I understand if you'd rather just share hospitals that you know of instead of your own. Thanks everyone!

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

There are four hospitals in my immediate area, and all four utilize surgical techs. We do have a few RNFAs who scrub, and a few nurses who either learned how to scrub elsewhere or are former STs who will fill in as a scrub on days we are short STs. Unfortunately for the STs, they are a lot less to pay- their max salary is right around the starting threshold for RNs at my facility. With many facilities looking to increase the bottom line, RNs being a higher expense are being replaced with unlicensed (and cheaper!) personnel pretty much wherever they can get away with it. You may want to expand your job search to ambulatory surgery centers- the ones in my area are primarily RN staff who both scrub and circulate as well as rotate out to pre and postop.

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There's several hospitals in my area. To my knowledge, all use a combo of STs/RNs depending on staffing. I interviewed for 3 OR residency programs before starting my current job (>2 years ago). They are out there, you just have to find them. I will tell you this, all three I interviewed for were academic teaching hospitals where the focus is (by nature) on learning.

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Specializes in OR.

The four hospitals in my area all use RN circulating nurses and CSTs to scrub. We have several nurses who have previous scrub tech experience who will scrub in when we are short staffed. Because of the salary difference, the hospitals don't want to pay RN salary for any position they can fill for less money.

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Thank you all for your input!! Looks like I need to keep my eyes on the teaching hospitals or ambulatory centers. :)

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