EICC HEALTHCARE GRADS RISE TO THE CHALLENGE When SHALLA CATALANO graduated from Scott Community College’s Surgical Technology program last December, she never could have predicted where her new career would take her. In healthcare it’s no secret every day is different. She just didn’t know how different things would become in a few short months on the job.
ERIC SCHOLTING,
a cardiac echo technician at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa can relate. He’d been on the job less than a year when COVID-19 rocked the nation. As the only male in a unit of women who all have children, he immediately volunteered to take the COVID patients who needed ultrasounds. “At first it was pretty scary because protocol would change on an hourly basis,” he said. “It was scary because we were kind of in the dark with what was going on and how we should do things. Being on the front lines, you hear stories of healthcare workers getting sick. Doing an echo you spend almost an hour face-to-face and you wonder how easy is this going to be to contract if I make a mistake?”
“I started at Genesis East on January 6,” Catalano recalled. “It was really overwhelming, I was on the orthopedic team and I was still trying to learn and navigate through that specialty when COVID hit.”
Scholting performed ultrasounds on COVID patients with preexisting conditions. While the start was rough with changing guidelines and lack of PPE, he said things have improved significantly since then.
COVID-19, or coronavirus, began to spread across the country and by March businesses, schools and more were shutting their doors. Meanwhile, hospitals geared up to care for sick patients by securing PPE and cancelling non-essential visits and procedures. The highly contagious and sometimes deadly virus presented (and is still presenting) a host of unknowns. Despite the risks, with the majority of surgeries cancelled and the Emergency Department (ED) in need of help, Catalano did not hesitate to volunteer for the COVID unit.
“It’s definitely fulfilling especially during these times, who would predict a pandemic happening? It does make you feel like you’re participating and bettering the community just by being a healthcare worker. It’s extremely rewarding with all the chaos right now.”
“We had more patients and they needed someone to help triage patients,” she said. “It was very out of my comfort zone, but I did the best I could. I made sure we had correct PPE on, brought patients back to the room and took basic vitals.” She said the hardest part was coming from the OR to the ED and learning a completely new set of skills at a time when she was still so new to her role as a surgical technologist. “It was overwhelming learning it, but I’m the one usually running toward a problem instead of away from it, I just like to help in any way I can, especially with people.”
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“It was overwhelming learning it, but I’m the one usually running toward a problem instead of away from it.”
Catalono agrees. Now back to assisting in surgeries such as hip and knee replacements, tendon repairs, nerve repairs, broken bones and more, she feels grateful for the opportunity to make a difference during a difficult time. “I feel like COVID has given us all perspective,” she said.
