Surg Tech Travel Jobs: An Option for Me?

A surgical technician, also called a surgical technologist, is an allied health professional who assists surgeons in the operating room by checking equipment, performing safety inspections, and helping the surgeon during procedures. There is a growing need for more surgical technicians in the United States. Because the need for surgical technicians is high, an option is to be a traveling surgical tech, much like a traveling nurse.

What a Surgical Technician Does

Surgical technicians focus on surgical procedures, locations, and equipment. They assist with surgeries and help maintain the equipment and sterile space. They help prepare the surgical space and perform safety inspections to ensure all is ready for the patient and procedure. You may also hear them called surgical technologists or operating room technicians. Surgical technicians are forecast to have a growth rate of 12 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The education needed for a surgical technician is simple: It's either a non-degree program or an associate's degree from an accredited institution. This means you do not have to go through a typical four-year college program in order to go into the field, though any prior education in anatomy, biology, or related fields is certainly helpful.

The Advantages of a Travel Component

Traveling nurses have been a mainstay of hospitals and other facilities because each nurse can go to a remote location for a few months, and then change over to a different location as local needs change. While traveling surgical technicians haven't gotten as much publicity as traveling nurses, the concept and advantages are essentially the same. The traveling techs can fill short- and long-term needs at different locations while seeing different parts of the country.

Whether you, as a traveling tech, want to work on short-term contracts so you can see a lot of different places, or if you want to work on longer-term jobs so you can see what it's like to live in a particular part of the country in different seasons, you have those options. The types of contracts available depend on how much need there is at any one time, but you may find your choices to be fairly abundant.

Unlike nurses, who can work in hospitals, private offices, schools, and other locations, surgical technicians work in hospitals and surgery centers. While that may not sound very diverse, it actually is; as you move from facility to facility, you'll be exposed to different protocols and policies that depend on state laws, facility regulations, and individual surgeon experience.

One more advantage to being a traveling surgical technician is that, if there are no acceptable jobs in your immediate location, you can sign up with an agency and go to the job, rather than waiting for a job to open up where you are. The shorter nature of traveling assignments makes it easier for techs with families because the tech can work somewhere else for a while, but the rest of the family doesn't have to uproot itself.

Not Just an Assistant

Surgical technicians assist in the operating room, but the assisting that they do is highly skilled. This is not a field you can learn on your own, or even learn completely online (though online education does form a big portion of many programs). Whether it's in person or online, though, it has to be formal education, and you need to be in a program that includes practicums and labs.

Are you interested in becoming a surgical technologist? Whether travel is on your mind or not, you could need to earn an Associate of Applied Science in Surgical Technology. ECPI University offers this program at an accelerated rate. For more information, connect with one of our knowledgeable admissions counselors today.

It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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Gainful Employment Information – Surgical Technology - Associate’s

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