[teaspasser]

What type of training is needed? How do you get into plastic sugery? Do surgical nurses make pretty good money?

[grahamcracker977]

You need to be an RN to be a circulator in the OR. To scrub you can be an RN, LVN, or surgical tech. I've even had some scrubs that were trained by the hospital and not certified (don't recommend this since you probably can't work anywhere else). Of course, the military is a lot different but we'll talk about civilian land for now.
I started off around the 40,000 area as a new grad. ADN/BSN does not make a pay difference. I'm a BSN and now I am a CNOR (certified perioperative nurse). That doesn't make a pay difference either in my hospital. I have doubled my salary in my seven years as an OR nurse. So yeah, you can make a decent living.
I suggest trying to get an internship in a major hospital. You'll learn the most about the specialty in these teaching type hospitals. Internships are also offered in smaller settings but I encourage larger hospitals because you will gain so much more experience/confidence.
You can do plastics in a large hospital or surgery center. A lot of plastic surgeons hire nurses to work with them exclusively. This happened with the surgeons I worked with at a large teaching facility; however, they didn't want to pay very much. I'm sure this isn't always the case...so don't let that cloud your picture.
Plastics falls into two catagories...reconstructive or cosmetic. I learned/did recon at the big hospital...facial fractures...burns...micro surgery (reimplanting fingers and such) and free flaps. I do cosmetic at the suburb hospital I work at now...eyes...boobs...I get bored with the cosmetic side but that's just me. I also hate big facial fractures...so not all recon is fun either.
Good luck.

[Scrub Nurse]

This is so different to where I work (australia)

To be a scrub nurse you can be a registered or enrolled nurse. I know in the US you LVN's and RN's, an enrolled nurse is supervised by an RN is this helps....i guess it's the same as your LVN's.

A scout (circulator) nurse is usually the enrolled nurse. EN's do not scrub for major cases, mainly for hernias, arthroscopies and minor plastic stuff. We don't have techs where i work, we are very much against them for some reason.....

Anyway i would suggest a teaching hospital as well because the pace is usually much slower. I wouldn't recommend ortho straight away it's pretty daunting.....

And i agree that facial fractures really are the pits.

[pipingmad]

I'm starting my perioperative program on Sept 4. It's at a large teaching hospital that also serves as the only level 1 trauma facility and burn center for 4 states.

Several of the other local hospitals in the area send their new OR hires to a perioperative consortium for their training. My hospital decided a few years ago that they could do a better job of it and now teach their own.