Should Surgical Technicians Circulate

solarflare · Jan 17, 2005

No.

subee, MSN, CRNA · Feb 3, 2005

Absolutely NOT!!! Not even qualified. I did have a very long answer to this, but decided my answer would be taken wrong by a few out there. So, instead a very short NO. Mike

Please allow me to disagree. I've been a CRNA for 25 years and believe that RN's in the OR are generally a waste of taxpayers money. Why do people work in the OR? No one comes TO the OR. They're running AWAY from the floor. People come to here from the floor and they have no idea what they're in for because no one does an OR rotation in school anymore (because its not nursing!). When I did my neuro rotation at Columbia (very long, very complicated procedures)all scrubs were techs and they were sharp. I've told my anesthesia pals that if I have a bad accident on the way home, please make sure that I have an army tech in the room. What nursing diagnosis could you possible make about a patient in the OR that only a nurse could do? "Help relieve apprehension." "The OR is a cold environment. Keep the patient warm." Are these the higher order decisions of nursing? I think not. I think that we need a compromise - the Operating Room Nurse. They would have two year associate degree training. The first year would be spent learning the scrub role along with freshman prerequisites and the science courses that the RN students take. The second year would be honing your scrub skills and learning to circulate. The internship would take place where the student would like to be employed. When the student graduates on Fri., that person can come to work on Monday and be familiar with that hospital's OR and be ready to take call. I've seen a depressing number of RN's come down here for orientation only to get pregnant or "move" (now that we've spend the time and money orienting them). I see nurses spending precious little time with the patients. They're doing paper work, trouble shooting VCR's and gophering. The circulator is a very expensive gopher. When a lawsuit comes out of patient positioning, it is anesthesia that gets sued, rarely the nurse. I've worked with very few OR nurses that didn't embarress the profession as a whole. Didn't even know that there were hospitals that used techs who weren't certified. That's a liability. A lot of the RN's like to scrub but why should the hospital pay the RN's salary to do a tech's job? Of course, I understand that small rural hospitals are different and the OR nurse might have to work PACU which is a different can of worms. The AORN is one big closed union that's making itself obselete since they are so resistent to using another license to circulate. The OR nurses are getting pretty old. Who do they think is going to keep the OR's running in the future when the pool of nurses is even smaller to recruit from?

madmad · Feb 3, 2005

I TOTALLY ARGREE with the last post!!!

solarflare · Feb 4, 2005

I TOTALLY ARGREE with the last post!!!

Yeah, me too. Why can't we all be gophers? Then the fight would be: "I'm a registered gopher" or, "I'm a certified surgical gopher" or, "I'm a licensed vocational gopher", or, "I'm a medical gopher", etc.,etc.,etc. Whatever we, (the O.R. team), are called, the patient is really the one we "gopher" for. So why don't we get things really heated up and talk about the different payscales for the "gophers"?

Greg, Registered gopher, 3-11

CrunchRN, ADN, RN · Feb 4, 2005

I wish you only the best, but after reading your posts in several different threads I really have to wonder why you seem to despise associate degree nurses especially, but all nurses to some degree. I see that you are a nurse with advanced education, but how can you be so out of touch. I understand that a minority of nurses and humans are idiots, but I feel such antipathy and scorn for nurses when I read your posts. Do you mean to be communicating these types of feelings, are you even aware of how your posts read to nurses in the trenches?

You had one post in the Nursing Shortage thread (I think) that literally was the worse writings I have ever read by one nurse about other nurses.

No flaming, just generally interested to try to understand where you are coming from.

subee, MSN, CRNA · Feb 5, 2005

Well, well, well Subee, how delightful to have such an unbiased post on this thread. So I guess somewhere in that totally , how do I put it?, oh yeah, STUPID, rant you forgot to state how the same principal applies to CRNA'S. I guess you too can be replaced by a 2 year associate degree trainee who has never done a days training other then the OR in his or her life?. Actually here in London your job Subee is performed by the most junior doctor and very few hospitals here would pay an RN to hold retractors ect. It is embarrassing for me to know that every day you work in the OR and every day you fail to see the work we do. Or do you simply take delight in putting us down. I have worked in the OR for many years both in the states and europe . I am a perioperative nurse which means I am aware of each aspect of my patients journey throughout the OR. I am also a midwife so in the event of pregnant women coming to the OR my training and experience provides a safe journey for both of those patients. I assess my list, according to the cases, personnel, type of patient and instrumentation available. I consult with the surgical team including the units, blood bank, surgeon and anaesthetist. I continually monitor my patient's progress throughout the case, as well as mentoring students and teaching and assessing new grads. I feel that your lack of knowledge stems from the fact that you now work in an environment where your autonomy is limited by your boss who calls the shots. My boss is the patient whose best interests are my sole concern. And that my friend is why all ORS should have RN's .

Well, Carcha, you and your other UK colleague are sort of proving my point when you point out that RN's do not scrub in your OR's. Don't be so sensitive. I"ve already listed the qualities that the person who works in the OR should have and I don't remember stupid or subservient being any of them. I'm only saying that we have no new OR nurses coming down the line. The average age of the OR nurse in the states is 48 and the source of new OR nurses is becoming increasingly smaller. Very few hospitals in the states have OR training programs because they can't afford that education position in the OR. Is is so awful that the associate degree educated person should not assume this job (for all you folks who think I'm putting down associate degrees)? Is it so much for the hospital to ask to have a new employee who can come to work and not go through six or eight months of training before taking call? All of your work is necessary and you seem like the kind of person I'd love to have working with me. I'm just saying you don't have to be an RN - you could be something else. By the say, CRNA's in the states do not have to be supervised by an anesthesiologist so I'm certainly not ranting out of any feelings of powerless. I do not dislike nurses - we are the hardest working, kindest people I know. No, I do not think an assoc, degree would be

appropriate for CRNA. I meant for my question to be provocative and get folks to think outside the box.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Feb 5, 2005

the source of new OR nurses is becoming increasingly smaller.

I could see why lol. And i wouldn't say it's all because of long work hours, ******** sugeons, or techs.

Nurse Ratched, RN · Feb 5, 2005

Closed for cooling off/clean up.