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Home / Specialties / Nursing / Perioperative

Perioperative

Operating room, recovery and procedural nursing.

Units in this group

Operating Room

Intraoperative patients across surgical services, in circulating and scrub roles.

PACU

Patients emerging from anesthesia — airway management, pain control, hemodynamic stabilization.

Pre-Op

Surgical patients from admission through transfer to theatre — assessment, IV access, consent verification.

Endoscopy

Patients undergoing GI and bronchoscopic procedures, with moderate sedation.

Cath Lab

Patients undergoing diagnostic and interventional cardiac procedures, including STEMI activation.

Sterile Processing

Instrument decontamination, assembly, sterilization and distribution supporting all procedural areas.

How these units differ

They look interchangeable on a job description and are not. The single most common cause of a failed placement in this group is a req that names the unit but not the acuity, the ratio or the equipment — so a candidate arrives qualified on paper and unable to hold the assignment.

UnitTypical ratio
Operating RoomCase-based rather than ratio-based
PACUTypically 1:2, 1:1 for phase one unstable
Pre-OpTypically 1:3 to 1:4
EndoscopyCase-based
Cath LabCase-based
Sterile ProcessingVolume-based

What to specify when you send the req

We ask for patient population, acuity, ratio, equipment and shift pattern at intake, plus the exact credential the unit requires rather than the job title. If you are not sure what to specify, describe the patients and we will work backwards to the credential.

Licensure in this division

Registered nursing is covered by the Nurse Licensure Compact in most of the country, so a multistate license lets a nurse work across member states without a new application. Thirteen jurisdictions sit outside it — Alaska, California, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands — and in those markets every out-of-state nurse needs a single-state license first. Those are the markets where reqs stay open longest.

How we work these reqs

Every candidate is spoken to before submittal, with licensure, certifications and unit-specific competency confirmed up front. Rates sit inside the ranges on our published cost breakdown.

Need perioperative coverage?

Tell us the unit, the ratio and the start date.