OR RN scrub hospitals

[ornurse8]

Hi! 

I'm a Canadian nurse looking to move to America to do OR  nursing. I really would like to find somewhere that I can keep my OR scrub skills (we don't have surgical techs in the province that I'm in, so we have to scrub). 

Are there any hospitals specifically that allow OR RNs to both scrub and circulate? I'm finding it difficult to find specific hospitals that will let their RNs do both. 

I'm looking into Washington state, Massachusetts, NYC, and Colorado, but open to other states as well. 

Thank you! 

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

In mine it is expected of RNs to scrub, although we have STs as well. I'm not on your state list though. 

[ornurse8]

That's great! Which state are you in?

[RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN]

I know that in WA, RN's do scrub at University of Washington (UW) hospitals . In California at most , if not all the Large Academic hospitals  the RNs scrub and are trained to do so if they do not have the experience when they start the new job. The best thing is to get in touch with the large hospitals OR RN recruiters in the states that you are interested in and ask. Many job postings now also state Scrubbing required or need to be willing to learn to scrub as a 'preferred' attribute. I get to scrub 2 out of my 3 shifts every week which is great.

[kubelkabondy, ADN, RN]

OR nurse in WA here. At both facilities where I work, we have RNs who scrub and circulate. There are also RNs who are not trained to scrub and only circulate. I don't know of any RNs that scrub exclusively. 

In general, you will be more appealing to employers if you can do both roles. Be careful though - if the facility you end up is shorter on scrub techs than RNs, you might find yourself scrubbing all the time. We have a bunch of travel nurses at my facility that know how to scrub, but keep it a secret from management because they don't want to be standing on their feet all day.