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Discussion

OR pay vs. other RN pay.

Loaded question here. I will try to keep this brief. Our hospital has had a $3/hr differential for OR RNs in order to attract RN's to the OR. This was always prefaced with the fact that this differential is reviewed every 6 months. Well we were just notified that the $3 differential is being taken away as no other hospital in the region has a "differential". We are a level 2 hospital seeking level 1 and also magnet status. We have a huge shortage in the OR and our staff has shrunk by 8 RN's in the past 2 months. Starting pay for a new grad/periop student is $24 (+$3 differential) and average is probably $27, as most of the RN's are 5-8 yrs. experianced.

Our arguement for a pay difference or different pay classification is based on the fact that most of us could go to a floor and help out but no one from another unit can walk into an OR and do what we do. Based on the training involved, etc... Its hard enough for us to alternate between say a heart surgery one moment then go to an eye surgery the next.

We do not place ourselves above any other area of nursing, just more specialized in our area. Difficult to recruit and lengthy training time. Our call response (traumas) is 20 minutes, if we cannot make that time then we are required to stay at the hospital during call. Call pay is $4/hr then time and a half when called. We average 2 call nights a week and one weekend call every third weekend. Heart team is on call 24/7 every other week!

I guess my question is does your hospital pay OR RN's differently? How does your hospital compare to this?

Staff loves the hospital or we would have left a long time ago, but when you purposely live close to work to make the call time, and over-time is common, something has to give.

Thanks!

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I have worked at 3 hospitals thus far and none of them offered higher pay to OR nurses. They went by seniority so a floor nurse with 5 years experience would make the same as an OR nurse with 5 years experience..we have shift differentials and that's it.

Would be pretty sweet if we did get a differential for working OR but most hospitals around here(northeast) don't do that. BSN grads also don't make any more than ADNs or diploma grads..

No different here either. The pay scale is based on years of experience. The only problem with this is it only goes to 20 years! I have 31 so I make essentially what the 20 year veteran makes. It seems that it is unfair of them to give then take away this differential. Unfortunately that is what upper management is good at, taking away. Other departments make take offense that they are less important. I do agree that you can't take an ER or L&D or even a M/S nurse and put them in the OR, but an OR nurse usually can work elsewhere. I, even after 30 plus years, could get through a shift on a M/S floor if hard pressed. Management might consider a one time "bonus" to new OR nurses and increase your standby pay, pitiful! Also, I knew an anesthesiologist that worked in Ft Collins many years ago. Not sure how many hospitals are there. Good luck with the hard problems.

We're unionized at my hospital. Every nurse in the hospital is payed the same based on a years of experience calculation.

  • Author

Thanks for the replies.

I suppose we were lucky to have had the differential for the past 2 years. Its just going to be hard to swallow a $3/hour cut, thats about 12%!

We do have a great system here, I think they goofed in implementing the differential in the first place as now they have this problem. Since we are short staffed in the OR and having to work so much extra call and overtime, staff and management are looking at ways to compensate staff until we get more RN's on board. We have looked at bonuses for new hires, but that doesn't address current staff.

Any ideas? Thanks again!

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