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The differences between patient care assistants and operating room assistants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-3 months to become both a patient care assistant and an operating room assistant. Additionally, an operating room assistant has an average salary of $34,177, which is higher than the $32,799 average annual salary of a patient care assistant.
The top three skills for a patient care assistant include patients, vital signs and PCA. The most important skills for an operating room assistant are patients, surgery, and anesthesia.
| Patient Care Assistant | Operating Room Assistant | |
| Yearly salary | $32,799 | $34,177 |
| Hourly rate | $15.77 | $16.43 |
| Growth rate | 9% | 9% |
| Number of jobs | 261,345 | 218,839 |
| Job satisfaction | 5 | 4 |
| Most common degree | High School Diploma, 26% | Bachelor's Degree, 43% |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 3 | 3 |
A patient care assistant is responsible for attending patients' needs with the supervision of a health care professional. Duties of a patient care assistant also include performing basic medical tasks such as taking patients' temperature, monitoring food intake, preparing medicines, recording health conditions, assisting on lab tests and other medical procedures, and providing information and important updates to the patient's family. A patient care assistant must have excellent time-management and multi-tasking skills to perform duties efficiently and accurately.
An operating room assistant works alongside the surgeons in maintaining the orderly and sterile nature of operating rooms. The assistant ensures that all surgical equipment is clean and hygienic, all monitoring equipment is functional, and everything needed by the doctor is present inside the operating room. The assistant position is vital during an operation. The surgeon may become too focused on the operation at hand that helpful assistants must ensure an operation's smooth flow.
Patient care assistants and operating room assistants have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Patient Care Assistant | Operating Room Assistant | |
| Average salary | $32,799 | $34,177 |
| Salary range | Between $23,000 And $45,000 | Between $26,000 And $43,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Diego, CA | Santa Monica, CA |
| Highest paying state | Hawaii | Hawaii |
| Best paying company | Microsoft | University of California, Berkeley |
| Best paying industry | Health Care | - |
There are a few differences between a patient care assistant and an operating room assistant in terms of educational background:
| Patient Care Assistant | Operating Room Assistant | |
| Most common degree | High School Diploma, 26% | Bachelor's Degree, 43% |
| Most common major | Nursing | Business |
| Most common college | - | - |
Here are the differences between patient care assistants' and operating room assistants' demographics:
| Patient Care Assistant | Operating Room Assistant | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 14.4% Female, 85.6% | Male, 46.8% Female, 53.2% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 10.4% Unknown, 4.9% Hispanic or Latino, 15.3% Asian, 7.3% White, 61.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.9% | Black or African American, 9.6% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 16.3% Asian, 7.1% White, 61.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.9% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 7% |