Army Perioperative Nurse (66E)

[burnetmw]

I am a recent comission as a 1LT in the Army reserve and new to this board! I have been reading posts here for years now and they have been extremely helpful in guiding me towards a career in the Army. I know I will have many questions down the road but my first is related to Perioperative (66E) nurse in the Army. I am interested in eventually going from reserves to active duty and would take the 66E course in periop nursing if I had the opportunity. Is it true that Periop nurses in the Army do not scrub in but mainly circulate?

[jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA]

OR nurses in the AF frequently circulate as Majors. Typically, OR nurses in the military are almost always O-3s or higher in my experience.

[jeckrn, BSN, RN]

Most OR nurse's I know went to 66E school as 1LT' s. In my class of 8 I was the only Captain. Depending on the size of your facility will dictate the rank of the OIC. At smaller hospitals it is Captains and larger ones it's LTC' s. As a major I circulate about 50% of the time, others are in the rooms less. When I was a senior Captain and newly promoted Major at the last hospital I worked at I ran the core and was only in rooms to cover breaks and launches or if we were short staffed. This all means is that it all depends on the need at the facility you are at how much you circulate. Some Perioperative chiefs will have the civilians in rooms before military nurse's.

[RN293]

How long is a typical deployment for reserve O.R. nurses? And how often are they deployed lately?

[jeckrn, BSN, RN]

How long is a typical deployment for reserve O.R. nurses? And how often are they deployed lately?

It varies on the assignment and the needs at the time. It can be as little as 3 months or as long as 15 months if they do 12 months boots on the ground.

[Dranger]

I originally wanted to go active duty but the spots were limited. I joined the reserves because I wanted to get started in the military and the army took me despite a health concern that needed a waiver. I guess I didn't really have a preference for which branch I served in. I am currently a 66H or med-surg nurse because that is my background, however, I was interested in changing specialties if I ever had the chance to go active. Periop nursing seemed very interesting to me. How do you like the OR?

Reserves to AD is next to impossible as a 66H and the chance they would send you to 66E school is slim. I had orders for 8A school (even though I work ICU) and they cancelled it a week before I was supposed to leave for 6 months.

Expect to stay in the reserves the rest of your career.

[MedicandRN]

I was a 66E in a reserve unit. Our unit (and several others around us at the time) had fewer OR nurses than scrub techs, so there would not have been a chance for the nurses to scrub had we deployed. To get into the reserve, I had to show competency in my civilian job as an OR nurse; I don't think working as a scrub tech would have helped. I joined 7 years ago, though, so I'm not sure how much has changed.