So You Want to Work In the OR? Find Out Why You Should Consider A Career In Surgery.

It’s 2024 - 4 years after the start of COVID and most employers are still feeling the effects of the strain it left on staffing. Travel jobs in healthcare existed before COVID, but they really skyrocketed during COVID and are still pretty rampant. There is a huge need for nurses and surgical techs in the OR, so much need that some facilities are training their housekeepers to scrub cases. I don’t know about you but that makes me very uncomfortable. So, let me try to convince you why you should look at a career in not only healthcare, but specifically look at joining the Operating Room team!

First, let’s highlight a few different careers that are in the operating room- Registered Nurse and Surgical Technologist are the two I am most familiar with and obviously spend most of this platform discussing. A career in sterile processing is another career path within the realm of surgical services, but not necessarily IN the operating room. Sterile Processing techs are the ones who make sure all of the instrumentation is properly decontaminated, re-assembled into sets, and sterilized for the next patient. Surgical instruments can be sterilized primarily by steam sterilization or by oxidation with the use of hydrogen peroxide. There is a LOT to learn in the sterile processing world, and it is all extremely important. There are other positions within the SPD department depending on your facility, such as an instrument or vendor specialist, repairs specialist, and of course leadership roles within. Vacancies within SPD departments are not terribly high, but qualified candidates with experience are hard to find!

I found a good article from Herzing University that talks a little bit about what a sterile processing tech does. Read the article here. 

Now for the surgical technologist path. This is where I started my career- at least my career in human healthcare, I did work as a veterinary technician before making my way into the human side of things. Surgical techs are a very important piece of the operating room team, which you can read about in another of my posts, but their primary role is to prepare and maintain the sterile field during procedures and work alongside the surgeon. Being a surgical technologist can be tough, but it is also extremely rewarding as well as fulfilling. However, between the overall lack of awareness of this role, the shortage of staffing still lingering from COVID, and surgical techs leaving to travel, most facilities have serious vacancies of surgical techs. The whole department suffers with high vacancy- but the existing surgical techs suffer the most- talk about burnout! Due to this most places are resorting to travelers, which is helpful but can also have a negative impact to the departments culture. The shortage has also forced facilities to be competitive in their surgical tech recruitment strategies. For example, the facility I work at is offering $20,000 sign-on bonuses for surgical techs with a start rate of $26 for new grads- that’s about $10/hour than when I took my first job as a surgical tech!!

Health Carousel wrote an article a while back about national shortages of Surgical Technologist see it here.

ARC/STSA also wrote an article discussing not only the shortage nation wide but the alarming training that some hospitals are resorting to- “abbreviated training” as the article refers to it. I have personally seen where hospitals have resorted to bringing housekeepers and aides to stand in as surgical techs. That is not to say that these individuals do not have the capability to perform the task with the right training and education, but expecting to just grab whoever is available and give them a few hours of on-the-job training is not adequate and is a threat to patient safety- to me, this just screams SSI. Not to mention this is a very disrespectful slap in the face to the surgical techs who have put in the hard work.

While a shortage is nothing to joke about, it’s good news for those considering entering the field. Being a surgical tech provides so much variety in the day-to-day, you are rarely ever doing the same thing. I still learn something every day, which is great! For example, today I learned that you can instill milk or formula (sterile, of course) into the bladder to assist the healing process if there is an incidental laceration during surgery- crazy, right!?

Now let’s discuss the Registered Nurse role within the OR.

It’s no secret that there are just not enough nurses to go around. Every department within the hospital and even those facilities outside the hospital are being hit hard with the limited pool of nurses that are on the hunt for a job. The population is getting older and requiring more care within the hospital setting and there are too few nurses to fill the need. Check out this article where they discuss the national shortage of nurses. The article states that “for the decade between 2022-2032, the United States expects only an additional 177,400 nurses to enter the workforce, which is less than what is needed to fill one year of projected openings.”

Yikes!

I mean you can literally google nursing shortage and you will find dozens of articles. Even the American Association of College of Nursing discusses the national shortage of not only nurses but advanced practicing nurses and how the need for these professions is only going to grow. So, while right now you may be looking at going into nursing, there are so many advanced certification or degrees you can move into which are all in high demand. Again, this is a career field where you have the potential to make a real difference in someone’s life! What could be more rewarding than that?!

Now, specifically in the operating room, we see that surgeries are only getting more advanced, and more technology is routinely being added- think robotic surgeries. The last few years have really been a roller coaster of a ride with COVID putting a damper on elective surgeries for safety concerns and then now we are flooded with elective surgeries in an attempt to play catchup. I would suspect that we are only going to see an increase in surgeries with not only a growing older population, but also in the accessibility of many surgeries with technological advancements.

Let’s take a look at the American College of Surgeons which stated that between 2012 to 2018 robotic surgeries increased 1.8% to 15.1%. We have also seen an increase in interest in the robotic surgery market which was previously dominated by Intuitive DaVinci. Now we are seeing Johnson and Johnson, Medtronic, Stryker and tons more. There are also a ton of smaller companies trying to break into the market.

Overall, I only see surgical procedures, especially robotic procedures, growing in the future. Robotics doesn’t mean less operating room staff, you still need at least one surgical tech, sometimes multiple, and a nurse to provide care to that patient. With the already national shortage of both nurses and surgical techs, it will only put experienced OR nurses and surgical techs at a higher demand. Personally, I think this is an extremely rewarding career path with only upside potential.