More circulating than scrubbing in US?

Specialties Operating Room

Published

Hi, I am a new OR nurse in Canada and planning to move to the States (California). I was told that there are many OR techs there, so OR nurses circulate instead of scrubbing all the time. Is that true? Can anyone tell me the situation of OR nurse in California, such as jobs, pays at hospitals, and in private clinics...

Thank you in advance.

Specializes in jack of all trades, master of none.

I can tell you that in IL that if you go on an interview as an RN & ask about scrubbing, you are glared at as though you are the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater.

I actually had an interviewer ask me "If you want to scrub so badly, why didn't you go to tech school?" Nice, huh?

Specializes in L&D.
I can tell you that in IL that if you go on an interview as an RN & ask about scrubbing, you are glared at as though you are the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater.

I actually had an interviewer ask me "If you want to scrub so badly, why didn't you go to tech school?" Nice, huh?

Yeah, it seems to be the same in MI.

Specializes in O.R., ED, M/S.

Do it both, have for 31 years. Unfortunately it is going the way of the, Techs scrub, RNs circ. I am lucky because where I work we have to do both and only employ one tech. It is a plus to do both, but most facilities don't want to take the time to train RNs to scrub.

In my hospital (upstate NY) we're short of RNs but have enough techs so the RNs just circulate. However, the OR directors realize that it's beneficial to have RNs who can also scrub. Once we get up to our full compliment of RNs, they'll start us scrubbing too.

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
I can tell you that in IL that if you go on an interview as an RN & ask about scrubbing, you are glared at as though you are the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater.

I actually had an interviewer ask me "If you want to scrub so badly, why didn't you go to tech school?" Nice, huh?

Make sure to put a scrub hat over the horn lol j/k

it is not that way every where. i know of a few places that only hire rns. the problem is that techs are paid less, so administration can hire techs at a greater savings. it is becoming more and more predominate for facilities to use csts to scrub and rns to circulate.

you will have to check it out in the area that you want to move to and ask. it also seems that some surgery centers tend to be friendlier towards rns scrubbing.

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