Certified Surgical Technician
Boston, Massachusetts
Brigham and Women's Hospital

Paid well when I first started. There are a lot of other travelers so they know the vibes. It’s a teaching hospital which could be a pro and a con. A lot of the surgeons are used to teaching so they’re almost all pretty chill although there’s a few rude ones.

Expensive city, hard to find housing, expensive parking at the hospital, awful hours (no 3/12s or 5/8s), don’t get placed in rooms a lot of the time and when you do they will put you in cases that aren’t on your skills check list and they will shame you for it instead of utilizing you where you’re proficient. The charges are mostly rude except for a few, the hospital is EXTREMELY unorganized, and no one at the desk knows how to book/schedule cases so it makes every day really stressful and complicated for no reason. Management will straight up lie to your face, and if you work hard, are well liked by surgeons and your coworkers, and do your job correctly, they will resent you for it. For staff and travelers, the management and charges are set on making you miserable for some reason. Most people expect their behavior is union busting tactics, but travelers and scuba are not part of the union, so I’m convinced it’s because they’re all burnt out and a little bit miserable. Just another money focused hospital that doesn’t much care about patient safety. It’s dirty, there’s rats, flies, dirty fridges and because it’s a teaching hospital you have to be hyper vigilant about aseptic technique because no one else in the room much cares if everything is sterile.