Why is OR so common for travel?

NedRN · Feb 22, 2019

Medsurg and ED are the largest specialties, and as a result, have the most travel assignments. OR is harder to staff for a number of reasons, and thus you might see more marketing.

This may cause some controversy, and is somewhat counter intuitive as OR is more technical than clinical, but it takes longer to train an OR nurse than most specialties, and it generally takes quite a bit longer to become competent in the large number of services that we work in than more narrow specialties. Higher trained nurses make more generally, especially in the free market environment of travel, and as there are fewer of them available, supply and demand rules apply.

There is another major reason why OR nurses command higher pay, they are necessary to the hospital's bottom line. Without them, surgeries cannot be done, and the hospital cannot bill for services, and inpatient days drop as well. Well staffed ORs are attractive to surgeons, and those who are poorly staffed lose surgeons and the tremendous revenue each one generates for hospitals.

In other areas, hospitals can stretch nurses among more patients. This actually lowers their costs in the short run.

As for the "good" schedules, OR nurses are just following when surgeons prefer to work which is during the daytime! Only the very largest of hospitals might have a night shift, and that is bare bones. The downside of OR nursing is taking call to cover those night and weekend emergency surgeries.

Aliens05, ASN · Feb 22, 2019

Thanks for the reply Ned, sounds like once I get some Med Surg experience I may want to look into OR next.

Editorial Team / Admin · Feb 22, 2019

What Ned said. In my OR, orientation, including the time period where we assign a resource nurse to 3 new nurses following their one-to-one preceptored orientation is 6 months. We can only fill a position when it is vacated or created, which means we can't just hire someone and expect them to be up and running in a short time (unless they have experience, but those are rare gems to find). Additionally, due to the length of orientation, many facilities may only hire once or twice a year to begin the intensive orientation program. So where do we turn when we're in a massive crunch when half the female staff ends up on maternity leave at the same time? To the travelers! Where do we turn when we create 18 new positions to open brand spanking new ORs and the new hires are all new to the OR and need that 6 months of orientation? To the travelers!

It also seems that a lot of OR nurses either come into the specialty and for the most part stay put (I work with nurses who have been in my OR for longer than I've been alive) or some of the newer nurses are now looking at not just changing jobs frequently, but changing specialties. Of the nurses we've lost this past year, 4 were to retirement, 1 was to ICU to gain the critical care experience for CRNA school, 2 were to NP positions, and 6 were to other inpatient nursing units. That's just the ones who stayed in nursing. We have 3 who left to become sales reps and one who left to return to construction work.

For perspective, I work in a department that employs 500 people within the OR, pre-op, post-op, PACU, endo, and sterile processing. We run 45 ORs and 5 endo procedure rooms daily.

NedRN · Feb 23, 2019

I'll bet you have a night shift!

Editorial Team / Admin · Feb 23, 2019

1 hour ago, NedRN said:
I'll bet you have a night shift!

Indeed we do! With additional teams on call. We cover most specialties and the kitchen sink (except transplant and complex peds)

10GaugeNeedles, BSN · Apr 24, 2019

On 2/22/2019 at 10:36 PM, Rose_Queen said:
Indeed we do! With additional teams on call. We cover most specialties and the kitchen sink (except transplant and complex peds)

Do you have to have plumbing experience for your kitchen sink procedures? ?

NedRN · Apr 24, 2019

2 hours ago, 10GaugeNeedles said:
Do you have to have plumbing experience for your kitchen sink procedures? ?

No crack showing when we bend over. So maybe not.

Argo · May 20, 2019

Neds original reply is spot on. I have followed different specialties of travel for 20 years and OR has been the one consistently paying well and needing nurses through that period.

Trueblue12 · Nov 27, 2019

I am a nursing student also interested in the OR/Peri-op specialization.

@Argo, I read it a previous post that you can make 100k as a new grad. Which state is that, I am thinking CA? You also mention you had knowledge of surgeries right out of nursing school, may I ask how one accrues that experience in school? I would like to get my foot in the door or something to say in an interview to leverage a well paying position. Not going to lie, income is important at this time. Any advice to get a good salary in the OR would be great! Traveling as an OR nurse would be a great, too. I am trying to do my part to set myself up for success.

**RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN** · Nov 27, 2019

OR training is long and expensive. At my place it is one year. It consists of periop 101 course and orientation to all lines of service. I work in a very rural hospital with limited staff, equipment, resources and very sick patients and most don't speak English. It is a challenge all on its own.

When hospitals burn their staff out with a poorly staffed or managed OR, people leave and you can't just train anyone and be ready to fill the need so we turn to travelers.

As mentioned before or when there are maternity leaves to be covered, FMLA of any kind, nurses retiring, injured nurses, OR expansions etc.

We had a mass exodus because nurses got tired of taking so much call and knowing they were going to work every second of it due to management allowing to abuse the system and book after hour non-emergent cases. They were forced to turn to travelers as a short-term solution.

My hospital got rid of the noc shift and if you're on overnight or weekend call, believe you me, you will be there working. It is no picnic and it is hard to have a normal work-life balance. Money is great with all the callback but hardly worth it after a while and burnout becomes an issue.