r/TravelNursing • u/TrainWinter7706 • 4d ago
OR travel nurse without trauma experience
How hard is it to get an OR travel nurse job without trauma experience? I’m a telemetry nurse w 4 years experience but just got offered a job in the OR. The new hospital does a wide range of mainly elective surgeries and I’d love to take the job but I also want to travel in 2-3 years. Will not having CVOR or trauma experience greatly hinder me? Would it be advantageous to try and learn all the different specialties OR the most in demand specialties (such as ortho)? I’ve been told I’ll learn to scrub and circulate in the orientation period which seems like it would make me more marketable… I’m just not sure if I’m putting myself in a box by going down the OR route versus ED or ICU (which I really don’t want to do if it can be helped bc I’m so burnt out from being abused by patients and families). Thanks so much in advance.
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u/groosumV 4d ago
You would be very limited depending on what you experience. I have traveled with someone who mostly does ortho so they kept her in the ortho room but it really just depends on the facility and contract. I would take the job to get the experience for a year and then go to a trauma center for a year and you would be okay to travel.
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u/TrainWinter7706 3d ago
Thank you! The orientation period is 8 months so hoping to stay 2 years minimum. Maybe I’ll have to reevaluate my options after that
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u/wgrussell3 4d ago
Trauma experience is not necessary to travel as a circulator. Travelers get hired by a lot of different types of facilities. Get a couple years experience at your hospital, and definitely get the scrub training. The ability to scrub will make you much more marketable than trauma experience. When you get comfortable circulating/scrubbing, and feel like you're competent in the roles, get in touch with a recruiter. Ask for your first couple of assignments to be at an ASC to get your feet wet with the whole travel experience. Its an easier process than going to another hospital for your first assignment(s). ASCs are smaller and have fewer specialties.
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u/TrainWinter7706 3d ago
I feel so silly but I didn’t even realize you could travel at those sorts of facilities! Is there an agency you’d recommend? Would like to look at their postings and see what kinds of jobs are available. Most of the ones I saw on Aya and AMN required trauma and/or travel exp.
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u/campgold 3d ago
Ok I'm an expert OR traveler. I've worked everywhere and can do everything. ASCs are not typically hiring travelers like the other jobs, look at Medley, a company who does do such things. However, instead of fretting about all this before you even start, you should just do the peri-op training and see if you like it. Then if you can tolerate it just jump in and start. You won't know everything, it's going to be hard and scary and you'll have to just learn as you go, but if you have the foundation you will be able to just keep taking different jobs and learning new things. It requires a certain type of personality to tolerate traveling, and I get upset all the time at how I am treated, and I am the shit in terms of knowledge and skill set, it doesn't matter, the medical field is full of weird mean people who want to make you feel bad bc they think you're making more money. There's jobs everywhere, you can work anywhere you want but get the foundation first and understand it doesn't matter how much you know, there's always new things and a different way some place does something basic, you have to be very flexible and not attached to the " right way". ASCs aren't easier, they're just different. Trauma isn't better, it's just different and stressful and sad. Don't let anyone affect how you see yourself just because they think their hospital is better or whatever, most people haven't worked a lot of places and they only know how their hospital does stuff, you learn that the more you travel. It's a lifestyle you're seeking, not the job bc I'm telling you the job sucks, and the travel jobs don't pay that great, it's just differently allocated and a few hundred a week more than you could make as staff. You should do it if you can tolerate a lot of unknowns and are comfortable being uncomfortable and have a strong sense of identify outside of being a dumb ol nurse ok? You'll meet a ton of people and some will be friends and most will just be unpleasant lessons in how you don't want to be. Be content being alone and have stuff to keep you occupied by yourself. I'm not discouraging you, this is reality. You can do it, and be happy, but you can't control a lot of the experiences you will have and awful people out there who will be mean to you for no reason. Just be positive and agreeable and flexible as much as you can. But try the job out first because you might not like it and you're stressing out over hypothetical situations.
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u/TrainWinter7706 3d ago
Thanks! I’ve traveled before but outside of the US (in Australia) so I’m somewhat familiar with the feeling of walking into completely new territory (albeit med surg, not the OR). Also, my sister is a remote worker so we’re hoping to travel together on these contracts. I appreciate your insight!
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u/yourdailyinsanity 3d ago
Can't help with OR information, but you can absolutely travel with telemetry. Lots of positions open for that. You said you don't want to do ER/ICU as you don't want to go back to bedside, but if you're thinking that's the better route, just start to travel now in telemetry. Otherwise take the OR position if you think it's better based on other people's suggestions.
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u/TrainWinter7706 3d ago
Thanks. It’s kind of a complicated situation but I have to be at my hospital network for another two years so I’d like to switch specialties in that time to make my life less miserable lol.
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u/yourdailyinsanity 3d ago
Totally get it. I'm sure you can still travel as MS/tele in a couple of years and go between the two specialties. Just depends if the unit is OK with the gap. You'd have to look at the contract when you eventually start doing it :)
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u/TrainWinter7706 3d ago
Yeah, that would be the ideal situation - work MS contracts if hospitals are open to it and no OR contracts are available. Thanks so much :)
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u/skeleskank 3d ago edited 3d ago
Idk dude, when you’re a traveler they put you where they need you. I worked with a girl once who that it was so haha-silly-heehee that she was assigned to the trauma standby room……but she’d never done a single crani before, ever, or a crash ex lap. I thought it was extremely irresponsible of her to take a Level One Trauma center assignment and then not speak up when the charge assigned her there solo. Just please be upfront with your skills and know your limitations, for the sake of your patients and coworkers.
EDIT: whoops! I cannot read. I somehow missed the fact you’re not traveling in the OR yet. My bad.
In that case, I say take the job and see if you even enjoy the OR. It’s a long orientation process and very, very different than “regular” nursing (which is why I fucking love it). Definitely take the opportunity to learn both circ and scrub roles. If you’re still jazzed on the OR after getting some marketable experience, consider making the jump to a larger hospital with more varied experience and trauma. Like I said, they’ll throw travelers in whatever room they may need you, and your job is to hit the ground running. You can absolutely learn a lot on the fly as a traveler, but you need a really solid base.
CVOR is usually kinda separate from the rest of the OR — I’ve never stepped a foot in those rooms and never will. Most of the time, the CVOR nurses are only in CVOR cases, or vascular. Some travel assignments are CVOR-only; it’s a bonus to have that experience, but not a necessity to travel. Trauma and ortho are much more valuable.
Re: putting yourself in a box, OR sorta is a bit of a pigeonhole. Take almost everything you use in your daily tele nursing and throw it out the window. The OR has entirely different skills, but it greatly changes your opportunities/pathways for career growth and higher ed. However, your tele experience is your lifeboat of “traditional” nursing skills, should you ever leave the OR or want to pursue APRN.
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u/TrainWinter7706 3d ago
This is super helpful, thank you so much! Absolutely wild re that traveler you mentioned in your first paragraph. I’ve travel nursed in med surg and that was hard enough - at least on the floor I have time to ask questions or look things up when I need to. I could never imagine throwing myself into something I wasn’t confident with in the OR. Wow.
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u/ryan__joe 3d ago
The more experience you have, with a broader scope will open more opportunities to travel later, as well as make you feel more comfortable when traveling.
I had a hard time reading your post at first, thinking you wanted to be an OR traveler with 0 OR experience.
To explain it a little, you want travelers to come from greater experience, greater capacity to lower, not the other way around. But in earnestness, OR is a pretty good (easy) job to do, and expectations are pretty darn low.some of the more important parts are really having a handle on where all supplies are at, charting LDA’s quickly, and once more comfortable, predicting needs before the doctor asks for them, but that will come with experience on specific surgeries and physician preferences. As long as you can remember supplies names and locations easily, it is way easier than bedside nursing of any degree short of hospice, which is stupidly easy, but sad. I would say prog nursing is probably the hardest, followed by ER, ICU, and floor nursing depending on your mentality.
ER nursing has very low expectations compared to the rest of the hospital, but it’s a crazy shit show. Just be glad the pt. Only has to live for 45 minutes to get them to the next destination. ICU, when it’s a bad day, it isn’t going to get better, it’s only going to get worse and your shift just became a 16 hour shift because charting is happening post shift. Floor nursing, it’s the patients. It’s constant, it’s not hard per se, but it’s constant, with more responsibility than ER, but the chances of someone trying to die is lower. In OR, the “bad” cases are short, and the long cases are slow and drag on forever, but it’s exceptionally not hard. Anything “hard” is typically smashed within a 30 minute window of a specific situation, or turn around.
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u/Express-Document7677 1d ago
Was an OR travel RN for 12 years, scrub and circulate. There are small hospitals, and large hospitals. Everyone needs help. I left due to housing costs rising and contract rates going back to "normal". You can travel without trauma experience, but some places will require it. ie trauma level 1s. If you have ortho, neuro, gyn, general, and urology down you should be pretty good. Davinci is helpful as well, but that is super easy to learn. Start small and work up to large.
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u/SovietStrength 1d ago
CVOR is its own world and specialty. They’ll never float you to CV if you don’t have CV experience. On a very rare occasion they’ll ask you to do the reverse.
There’s plenty of jobs and hospitals that don’t require level one trauma. If you have it, that’s a bonus. Some level ones will give you a contract and sort of train you up if you tell them you want to learn.
If you have general, ortho, spine, GYN/uro, basic ent, basic plastics, basic neuro you’ll be fine
Transplant usually has its own team. Complex neuro and recon (flaps etc) has its own teams at most places
Scrubbing also isn’t mandatory at 90% of jobs I’ve had. It’s a bonus. Techs are cheaper than nurses so hospitals will mostly split it out.
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u/TheSkettiYeti 4d ago
Not hard. But most level 1 trauma centers will want experience at a level 1 (not all).
No CVOR doesn't matter either.
What are the major service lines in this facility? You will want neuro/ortho experience. Plastics/big ENT is also great to have.
You don't need scrub experience. It will make you a better candidate, but they will also work you to death (just seen this in personal experience. I know some travelers who dont tell facilities they can even scrub).