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Discussion

Hiring spouses? illegal?

I met a friend of a friend during a trip to LA....his wife works in the OR and he was prepping through some course to get hired there....he went through an interview process and was turned down. He had mentioned that he thought it might have to do with the fact that his wife worked there and that if something happened they wouldn't want to testify against each other....or something like that....legally can an employer not hire an employee based on this? I mean i have seen married couples working together in the different units I've worked in but they met there and didn't come already married. I'm very curious to read your responses.

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    • Expert

    AFAIK, there's no law against this, but different employers have different internal policies regarding nepotism. It's v. common that married or otherwise related individuals (parents-child, cousins, etc.) aren't allowed to work together on the same unit/department/service. Some employers have stricter policies than that. As long as employers aren't violating state or Federal employment/equal opportunity law, they can refuse to hire anyone they like. It may be that this individual didn't get selected for some reason that has nothing to do with his wife working there, esp. in this v. tight employment market. I would guess there were many applicants for the position, and it may just be that someone was better qualified than him or made a better impression in the interview process.

    Legally, husbands and wives cannot be compelled to testify against each other -- however, I've never heard that mentioned as a rationale for nepotism policies. There are many reasons you don't want relatives working together ...

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    • Admin

    Same as above. We have a husband and wife working in my OR. She's a surgical tech, and he's one of the clinical specialty coordinators. Internal policy is that no one can be the direct supervisor of a family member. She is supervised by a different clinical specialty coordinator. We also have some CRNA couples and CRNA/MDA couples and a few CRNA/surgeon couples.

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    I agree with Sweet. In general, as long as neither the wife or the husband holds a supervisory position over the other, it's fine.

    I have worked with several husband/wife teams over the years in the OR, and this has never been a problem. One set consisted of a nurse (wife) and her husband was a ST. They couldn't work in the same room together, but since they had different specialties (she was ortho and he was ENT), there was no dilemma. Another set were both travelers, and the same situation applied...different specialties.

    I am also interested in hearing others experience in this situation.

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    What about a scrub tech who is married to the surgeon and father in law is surgeon, too. She scrubs for both of them. They met on the job and are newly married. There have been two awkward moments one with a count and the other where a tray was questionable. Thoughts?

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    • Admin
    13 hours ago, RNORnow said:

    What about a scrub tech who is married to the surgeon and father in law is surgeon, too. She scrubs for both of them. They met on the job and are newly married. There have been two awkward moments one with a count and the other where a tray was questionable. Thoughts?

    She shouldn’t be assigned to either of their rooms

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