Q:What's a typical workday like for you?
I rotate through three areas: decontamination, assembly and wrapping. Every instrument has to be examined very carefully. It's a lot of attention to detail. I wash each instrument very thoroughly with an enzyme cleaner and detergent, brushing it clean or using a sonic cleaner which gets at what's hard to see. Then automatic washers wash and disinfect most instruments at a high temperature. I hand-wash cameras and scopes, which are delicate and cannot withstand high temperatures. After cleaning, I reassemble the instrument sets, making sure each precision instrument still works; inventory them, making sure the surgical set is complete; and wrap them for sterilization. After sterilization I store it in a sterile storage area for the next surgery.
Q:How does your role fit into the bigger healthcare picture?
Sterile service technicians are the foundation of surgical patient care, as much a part of the surgical team as the people in the operating room.
Q:Who do you interact with during the course of the day?
I interact with nurses, other technicians and sometimes surgeons. My customers are the operating room crews who are doing the surgery.
Q:Why did you become a sterile service technician?
I was an OR tech with the Navy and had to do the whole thing, including this part. I decided to specialize in this area because I really felt that it's very important that this step is correct all the time.
