If you think that Florence Nightingale’s great, great grand nurse is standing beside the doctor while he removes your inflamed appendix, think again. Bodies aren’t the only things opening up in the OR. Jobs are too!
Surgical Technology is one of the most rapidly growing careers in healthcare. Many technical schools and career colleges are now offering this specific training. Twelve to eighteen months of classroom instruction, coupled with hands-on clinical skill development can land you right in the middle of a very exciting place: The Operating Room—ala pass the scalpel please.
Luis Melendez, CST, CSA, has been a surgical technologist for many years. He began his journey while in the military. Today he not only stands on-call for several local trauma centers, he serves as the surgical technologist program director for a career college in his locale. He offers the following to anyone contemplating a new direction. Take his Surg Tech test and see if it’s right for you.
Five major benefits that a ST candidate/graduate may consider would be: (In my opinion)
1. If you are an adrenaline junkie….you [would be] in the right profession
2. If you like to get paid for carrying a pager and, in the middle of the night, go from being sound asleep to a crash c-section in the blink of an eye or less…… you [would be] in the right profession.
3. If you like a front “seat” (though you’ll most likely be standing) to the wonders of the human body, with all its fluids and smells, you like it!…..you [would be] in the right profession.
4. If you would like the privilege to go through the doors that read “Authorized Personnel Only/ Surgical Attire Required”…you [would be] in the right profession.
5. If you want to develop the thickness of your skin and not take anything personal, because you may have been mistreated, but you know you made a difference in someone’s life….you [have chosen] the right profession.
So while you’re watching the commercials on TV while you’re getting ready to go to an unrewarding job, where you’re underpaid, underappreciated, think of how you’d look in surgical green. Take off the mask you’ve had to wear to get through the day and trade it for a surgical one. You’ll like what you see and will be helping people live. And you know, it doesn’t get much better than that!
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