2017 Can Scrub or Circulating Nurses, & Surgical Technologists Sit?

[Icooka4u]

2017 Can Scrub or Circulating Nurses, & Surgical Technologists Sit?

I read a thread regarding this from 2002. Due to the fact that things change, I wanted updated answers/perspectives about this. There must be an increase in the need for Surgical Technologists because I've been seeing many job posts for them even saying that they are willing to hire and train LPNs (which is one of the qualifiers to do the job).

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Circulating nurse: yes, if the facility has provided a chair.

Scrub personnel: generally not during surgery, unless the surgeon chooses to sit. Then best practice is for everyone to be on the same level. Typically the types of surgery where the surgeon sits would be hand or foot.

[LessValuableNinja]

Scrub, generally not. Circulating nurses pretty much always sit to chart, in my anecdotal experience. Many facilities rotate scrub versus circulating. Some do not.

[birdie22]

Long debates at my institution about this topic. General rule, as previously mentioned, scrubs can only sit if the MD is sitting. The debate has recently come up in robotic cases. The MD isnt scrubbed in and the ST can often go over an hour without passing a single instrument. Should the ST be allowed to sit then?

As far as circulators goes, there is downtime to sit. Just depends how good your picklists are (i.e. do you have to run alot because things are missing).