Preparing Students spend hours preparing to work in an operating room. Rocky Sanchez, Reporter & Designer
for
surgery
Being in the cold operating room gives the staff chilling goose bumps. The entire room is blue from the walls to the tile floor with a glare of white from the surgical lights that give off a warm heat. Brent Marker, Coordinator of the Surgical Technology Program, keeps the program running smoothly at Hutchinson Community College and up to date with current industry standards. “There are a biology class or concepts of allied health, a prerequisite for A&P, and they need to have A&P and microbiology. We have recommended prereqs, which is medical terminology and pharmacology, and we recommend doing those because our credit hour load for our program can be high, so getting those done, it can help students be successful in the future,” said Marker. When taking the program, there are 20 credit hours in the beginning and the second semester 19, but if students take both medical and pharmacology, there will be 17 credit hours in the first and 16 credit hours in the second semester. Students are required to learn the instruments by category and by general instruments. “For example, the good majority of instruments you are going to use in general surgery cases which would be a bowel resection or removal of a gallbladder through the laparoscopy
4 004-007 Surgery.indd 4
approach, those instruments they have in those cases,” Marker said. “Those are the instruments we have here, so we go through each category, and we learn the 40 to 60 per category, and then we go over each instrument, what it is and how it is used, and then they have about two weeks to study them. And they can take pictures or use flashcards, stay after class and get hands-on with them if they like and about every two weeks there is a test, and after that, it repeats from there.” Apart from lecture and moving into the labs, students are required to open back table bag that has instruments inside for students to take out, learn how to open supplies correctly and sterile, how to open the instrument tray, how to open gown and gloves, and how to do a scrub and they are going to come in and order the back table with all the supplies on there. “When it comes to scrubbing in, students are extremely careful with what they touch, as soon as their hands go below their waist or touch anything, it’s considered unsterile. Anyone that has a gown and gloves is considered sterile,” said Marker. Processing the labs and lectures, students will first go over why they might need to scrub down first or handling the instruments. Once they have this down in class, they practice it in the lab. “We do mock surgeries with students, and sometimes doctors are put underneath stress. They might yell and raise their voice, and lots of times it
is not necessarily at you. Lots of times it’s the situation, and we also tell students they need to take constructive criticism,” Marker said. “If you can’t then this is not a good job for you because number one, the doctors are there to help you. Also, along with the student’s preceptor which is also a surgical technologist they,’re like here is a better way of doing this and lots of times we show the students that.” When students finish the program, they are hired at the clinic sites. Job placement is pretty high because at least in the next five years, the job market for surgical tech is expected to be pretty high According to Brent Marker. “We have face-to-face classes and online classes, and our online classes also coincide with the lecture and labs and everything else. If I see their grade slip, I will make sure to talk to them and ask them is there is something I can help you with or just get more of a background of them. Are they having internet issues or is it too loud where they are at, and I’ll make suggestions to go to the Rimmer,” Marker said. “They are open late. Debbie Ash is a clinic coordinator. So our lab classes are a pretty great ratio it’s eight students and two instructors.” Surgical Technology Program Clinical Coordinator Debbie Ash, is another instructor who helps students be successful in the program. She has a high value on how she views her students. “Knowing that I am producing patients to work in that OR [operating
Dragon’s Tale • Preparing for Surgery
11/12/20 2:39 PM
