Is scrub role still a thing?

[swank123]

Hey guys,

So I'm a ways away from being an OR nurse, but different things I've read here on AN have led me to ask: How common is it for an OR to train a newbie for the scrub role? I've read about nurses not really getting to scrub since there are PAs/residents/former surg techs/NPs with surgical exp/etc who would more likely supercede a new employee. So I'm wondering, would a new OR nurse get scrub training after some time (like a year or so)? Or would one have to proactively ask for that experience? Or am I completely wrong and it actually is common for newbies to get scrub training?

I only ask because it seems like I keep reading about newbies that only get trained as circulators or something like that? Can anybody speak to this?

Thanks!!!

[ArtieRN]

Where I work, the RN fellowship covers a little of scrubbing and a few nurses will get to scrub a little until they are part of full-time staff. The tech-to-nurse ratio, though, makes it so that it's really hard for nurses to scrub unless they have a lot of experience in certain specialties and they need the staffing, e.g. ortho, big joint cases, etc. This is apparently a pretty new thing that developed only a few years ago here when it was almost all nurses. There's also a relatively new policy where ADN/diploma RNs aren't allowed to circulate and are only hired as scrub nurses. I'm one of those, so all I do is scrub. half our staff are two-year degree nurses, but they were grandfathered in because they'd been circulating all this time. It's frustrating not being allowed to practice as a full nurse in the OR, grouped in with the techs (who are awesome, but that's not what I went to school for and took boards for), and being paid less than the BSN nurses that were in my same fellowship cohort, but there are also a lot of nurses here who are jealous of my getting to scrub all the time. From what I hear from travelers who come through here, though, this is an extremely rare and strange circumstance.