Athletic trainers are licensed healthcare providers and are qualified to scrub into the operating room as surgical first assists in most states, which offers hospitals a valuable pipeline to fill surgical technologist gaps.
In 2024, health systems reported that surgical tech shortages were on par with nursing shortages. In 2025, there were 117,460 employed surgical techs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found, with Colorado and California having the most. Surgical tech positions are projected to grow 5% in the next 10 years, and surgical assistants are projected to grow 4%.
While hospitals have struggled to fill surgical tech and surgical first assistant positions, athletic trainers have quietly been moving into healthcare settings. Most end up in physician practices, but many are shifting into hospital ORs.
Aaron Hajart started his career as an athletic trainer before transitioning to clinical roles in physician practices, then hospital leadership. Today, he is president and CEO of Community Medical Center in Toms River, N.J., part of West Orange, N.J.-based RWJBarnabas Health.
Mr. Hajart had assumed most athletic trainers were not aware they could transition into an OR-based role. Recently, he spoke at a conference hosted by the Athletic Trainers in the Physician Practice Society about how to move into healthcare settings.
“What I found was that well over a third of the roughly 300 to 400 people there were already working in the OR assisting surgeons,” he told Becker’s. “It wasn’t a novel concept to them at all.”
He estimates roughly 4,000 athletic trainers are working in physician practice settings across the country. Of those, between 400 and 500 are working in the OR as a surgical first assist for orthopedic and non-orthopedic cases.
Athletic trainers in action
There are OR pathways for athletic trainers that run through about a dozen formal residency training programs across the country, Mr. Hajart said. Athletic trainers learn to scrub and document as a first-assist case log, close patients with sutures, set up the OR, take patient histories, apply durable medical equipment, handle patient follow-up and support physicians across a range of specialties.
Mr. Hajart said finding athletic trainers who want to work in the hospital-setting is easier than filling other positions. At his last position as COO of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus, N.J., it hired 12 athletic trainers. When he hired for a new OR position, there were large pools of applicants from which to choose; that was not necessarily common with other healthcare positions. Throughout his career, Mr. Hajart has placed athletic trainers in orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, neurology and ENT practices.
Karim Meijer, MD, an orthopedic surgeon and executive medical director of sports medicine for CommonSpirit Health’s Mountain Region in Denver, relies on athletic trainers to help run his practice. He has one who operates as an office manager, one who is his “right hand” and treats patients every day by his side and one who operates his community outreach functions. He created all these roles from scratch because the job descriptions did not exist at CommonSpirit.
“Where is athletic care the best for any athlete?” Dr. Meijer, who is also the head team physician for the Denver Broncos, said. “Most people would immediately say professional sports — the NFL, one of the major pro leagues. All I’m doing is taking that medical model, the basic fundamentals of elite athletic care, and scaling it to the community and everyday people.”
How to recruit athletic trainers to hospitals
For leaders looking to tap into this pipeline, Mr. Hajart recommends finding a physician champion to lead recruitment.
“That’s almost certainly going to be an orthopedic surgeon,” he said. “Getting buy-in from your surgeons is critical, but you’d be surprised how receptive they are. Most orthopedic surgeons who have graduated in the last five to 10 years have probably had an athletic trainer in their clinical practice during training, and many have had one scrubbing in the OR alongside them during residency or fellowship.”
Dr. Meijer said leaning on physician leaders can be an incredible tool for finding the right people for the job.
“Hospitals know what they need to hire; they don’t always know who to hire,” Dr. Meijer said. “That’s the next level, and that’s where physician leaders in an organization are truly valued. I can tell them the who.”
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