Stanford

RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN · Mar 26, 2022

Hi there, I am a scrub RN & circulator at Stanford . Ask away.

dpop89 · Mar 26, 2022

Hi!

Thank you for responding! I have a bombardment of questions but I will only ask a few and not take much of your time.

1. What do you think of the culture there? In general, are the staff happy? Is the department adequately staffed?

2. I know the area is expensive and people probably commute from all over the Bay Area - how is the quality of life with the compensation versus the high cost of living area? I am aware of the payscale of the union (for reference).

3. What are some of the challenges the staff and department are facing right now?

dpop89 · Mar 26, 2022

15 hours ago, RickyRescueRN said:

Hi there, I am a scrub RN & circulator at Stanford . Ask away.

One more Q :).

How have the staff turnover rates been at a place like Stanford? I can't imagine they would be like I've witnessed where I live but wondered.

Silver_Rik, ASN, RN · Apr 2, 2022

Did you learn to scrub on the job or attend a surgical tech program? How long have you worked in the OR? Do you see a trend away from circulators knowing / being taught to scrub?

RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN · Apr 7, 2022

On 3/25/2022 at 9:19 PM, dpop89 said:

Hi!

Thank you for responding! I have a bombardment of questions but I will only ask a few and not take much of your time.

1. What do you think of the culture there? In general, are the staff happy? Is the department adequately staffed?

2. I know the area is expensive and people probably commute from all over the Bay Area - how is the quality of life with the compensation versus the high cost of living area? I am aware of the payscale of the union (for reference).

3. What are some of the challenges the staff and department are facing right now?

I think Stanford and the Bay Area in general is generally a better place to work in terms of workplace culture. Rudeness, impoliteness, and bullying are NOT tolerated at all from either staff or physicians and surgeons. At Stanford because we (RNs) are all members of our in house "boutique" union, this fosters a lot of solidarity and unity and also ensures that we have a very powerful means to address problems and issues as they arise. Also, California as a State has very strict and empowering labor laws that protect us as employees and as RNs with regards to mandated RN to pt ratios, lunches, breaks , protections against intimidation etc . Stanford still tends to be quite MD orientated from the medical side, but things are changing in that regard and with younger surgeons / physicians I can definitely see a change in terms of collegiality and team work which is great. The staff I would say are generally happy. We all complain of our jobs etc which is universal , but I would say that on the whole people like working here and we have great colleagues and friendships . The ORs are very well staffed in comparison to other hospitals and we have many staff who have been here for a long time. People generally don't leave. They usually just retire.

Yes the Bay are is expensive ( probably the most expensive in the US right now) .but thankfully our Union (CRONA.org) takes very good care of us and has ensured that over the last 50+ years that the RNs here are well paid and have decent benefits. I live 1 hr from the hospital and drive in 3x a week. It's not a bad drive and I live on a 2 acre property right near the beach in Santa Cruz County. I would say that as a single income household, I have a pretty incredible standard of living.

We are currently in the process of negotiating a new Collective Bargaining agreement (union with the hospital) so I think that is the biggest thing on everyones minds. We are voting today, authorizing the Union to call a strike vote , should that be necessary to ensure a good future contract for the adult and children's hospitals. Fortunately the nurses are very united and 100% behind the union, so I think we will prevail. As with most RN's, we are also just emerging from the 2+ year pandemic and people are tired, feeling burnt out , emotionally drained and frustrated. Overall though, people enjoy their work, their patients and their colleagues at Stanford. I've been here 11 years now.

RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN · Apr 7, 2022

On 3/26/2022 at 12:13 PM, dpop89 said:

One more Q :).

How have the staff turnover rates been at a place like Stanford? I can't imagine they would be like I've witnessed where I live but wondered.

Yeah generally speaking , staff turnover is low. One of our service lines (CVT OR) has had a very high turnover , but they are pretty separate from the rest of the services. On campus , we actually have 3 separate OR complexes. One with 30 ORs, one with 20 and one with 10. That is not counting the OR's at the children's hospital which runs separately from Stanford Healthcare.

RickyRescueRN, BSN, RN · Apr 7, 2022

On 4/2/2022 at 8:09 AM, Silver_Rik said:

Did you learn to scrub on the job or attend a surgical tech program? How long have you worked in the OR? Do you see a trend away from circulators knowing / being taught to scrub?

No at Stanford , you get trained to scrub as part of your orientation. It is required that if you accept the offer of employment, you are either , able to scrub, or are willing to be trained. If you have been a surgical tech prior then you will have an added advantage, however you will still need to be trained to the specific service line specialty that you are employed in ( Ortho, neurosurgery, plastics etc) . At least at most university hospitals, the trend is to have more and more RN's scrub as this ensures flexibility with staffing and better use of personnel resources . I definitely think it also builds better understanding between staff ( CSTs and RNs) There is definitely a very high level of team spirit because of this. No "us vs. them" mentality that exists elsewhere. I my service (neurosurgery) Almost 99% of the RNs scrub and we have very few surg techs. The same is true for most of the other service lines/ specialties.