Do you scrub and/or circulate c-sections?

[cosmicmama]

Hi all...I have over ten years of high risk L&D experience in a medium sized community hospital, and also have done a travel assignment at a huge teaching facility in Phoenix. I have never had to scrub or circulate a c-section at the places I've worked. It was done by OR nurses at the smaller ones, and travelers were not required to do it at the one in Phoenix. I'm now looking for my next travel assignment, and I'm having trouble finding one because all the places I'm interviewing (all in California at this time) are requiring experience circulating c/sections. Despite my more-than-adequate qualifications in all other areas, it's a deal breaker for them. I'm interested in hearing what is customary where you work, and if you have to scrub, circulate, or both, and how big is your hospital? I'm wondering if bigger level III hospitals require it more than smaller ones. Thanks in advance for the info!

[klone, MSN, RN]

CIrculate, yes. Scrub, no. I like circulating. We also recover our own C/S.

[monkeybug]

The hospital I am at we do the pre-op, circulate & PACU. We have either a scrub tech or OR to scrub. I wish they would train us to scrub, however. It is always a little stressful when our scrub tech calls in sick & we have to rely on the main OR scrub who's on call to arrive.

It's not hard to learn to scrub. There aren't really that many instruments. I observed another nurse for a couple of sections (also scrubbed and gowned so I could be right up in it), then I acted as scrub nurse with her there in case something went wrong for a couple, then I did it by myself for 5 sections in a row in one day. That was immersion learning! I love to scrub.

[RNnicu42]

I've worked 2 hospitals in CA in L/D. Both hospitals required L/D nurses to prep, circulate and recover. We have our own ORs and our own dedicated OB scrub techs. Some of the nurses are trained to scrub but most just circulate.

[Graduation2016]

I'm an OB Scrub Tech. Where I work we have our own scrub techs who are only on L&D. If we had someone call in sick and none of us can cover, they would have a scrub tech from the main OR on call for an emergency. Our nurses don't scrub, they only circulate and recover the patient in our PACU before transferring to mother/baby. I know of only one of our nurses that has scrubbed when there was not a tech available.

[BuckRN]

I work at a large county hospital that does over 300 deliveries a month. We all float through as circulator and a good portion of nurses are trained to scrub as well. On nights we have scrub tech until 11p M-F and then a nurse takes over as scrub and on weekends we only have nurses to scrub.

[eylee08]

I work at a community hospital and we always circulate our c-sections, one nurse as circulator and one for the baby. We are in the process of getting checked off to scrub in sections as well. Our techs are scrub techs but if a shift is not covered, the nurses are responsible for scrubbing in.

[LChrismer]

I work at a level 2 L&D in a small hospital that delivers about 250-300 a month, we also prep, circulate and recover our own c/s. Its a little scary when you first enter the OR with all the tasks that need to be done but you can do it, its pretty simple once the pt is prepped and on the table.

Try asking your current hospital to allow you to shadow an OR nurse for a day.

Good luck