All RN's Required to circulate??

The hospital that trained me in the OR had a mostly RN staff. RN's could either scrub or circulate. Some did both. I prefered to scrub but did assist with circulating larger cases.(When I wasn't scrubbed in.) I'm finding that hospitals are assuming that since I am an RN, I circulate and to keep my position I "Have to Circulate." It is a travel assignment that was presented as a "Must be able to scrub" when I accepted. They since found a Surgical Tech and I am being pushed out since "You don't circulate."

Most hospitals are going to want RN's to circulate. That actually is the norm since in most states, the circulator has to be an RN. If you can scrub, that's gravy. I love to scrub but I realize that as an RN, my main job is circulating.

My advice? Learn to circulate. This way, you'll be a nurse that can do both and this will make you more marketable in the long term. Many places have scrub techs now because they don't make as much an an RN, so you will most likely run into this problem no matter where you go.

I totally agree. Your basic job is to circulate. In the past when the OR was an RN only you could get away with that more. But now is the day of managed care and patient care techs. So we generally cost to much to scrub. Now if you are a traveler and you can not circulate i am really surprised that you find much work. I do count myself very thankful to be in the last genreation of RNs that were trained to do both.

The state where I work in, California, requires RNs to circulate one room at a time. If you can scrub that is a super plus skill. I have scrubbed and circulated for over 30 years and we train our RNs to do both, it is required. I personally can't see why someone would only want to circulate. I like variety and the ability to do both is a nice refrain from the mundane(sp). We won't use registry RNs that only circulate because most of the time you really don't have the time to fully orientate that person to where everything is. The problem lies in if you needed something stat that person might not remember where it is and it just delays getting it. Registry RNs in the OR are a waste of time, IMHO, and only if they are going to be around their full 13 weeks. Having them around for just a few days or so isn't very efficient.

Thankfully, there are quite a few OR orientation programs out there(at least in my neck of the woods) that train to both scrub and circulate..I'm old school about this..I think knowing how to do both just makes you a better OR nurse in general.

In the OR program I took (which is now for BScNs only, before was for diploma and degree-trained nurses), we were taught both scrub and circulating roles-in fact, we were scrubbing into cases before we were allowed to circulate.

However, in that particular hospital there were both RNs and scrub techs, who were LPNs. If there was a scrub tech assigned to the surgical suite, he/she had to be scrubbed in to all cases unless they were on break, as the circulator took the patient to Recovery and LPNs weren't allowed to transport an anaesthetized patient.

I didn't enjoy circulating, so I was happy to find out the hospital I was eventually employed at only had RNs and we all took our turns scrubbing and circulating.