Meeting & Agendas

The meeting was called to order by Becky Stewart at 1:30 pm. Attendees were: Dixie Campbell, Dr. Tim Faulkenberry, Fred Canales, Kimberly Randall, Olinda Lindsey, Becky Stewart. Surgical Tech faculty: Pedro Barrera, III, Kathy Baumbach, Susan Diamond, Carol Hamilton, Barbara Powell, Michele Richards, Kathy Cook, Tracey Vasquez. Students: Laurie Tenberg, Daniel Scott Poppaw, Anthony Oliver.

No comments or suggestions.

Should Surg Tech Faculty change what they teach when hospital does things one way and students do another way? Confusing about opening packages when hospital wants the tech to stand close and student is taught to stand further back. If they did as the hospital says in Check-Offs, it would be a failure. Have told students it is better to be taught black and white and not the grey areas. Becky Stewart says don\'t change technique because hospitals could stand being more sterile. Surg Techs should always be trying to learn and upgrade. Becky Stewart would like to have the student\'s comments toward employees, the standards that you teach or adopted be a higher level and someone comes in to see what you do. Current standard practice when you can\'t follow procedures may be circulators should step up and help. Discussed time students spend at one clinical site. Some students want more time at a site. Also consider rotating instructors. Some preceptors have burn out on students.

Talked about Pharmacology and Math becoming prerequisites. ACTION: Pedro Barrera, III made curriculum change. State Certification Exam can be taken prior to graduation with a 70% pass rate. In Texas you must be certified. Changed number of cases to 80 but still have to have certain cases. Case loads of hospitals have dropped making it very hard to get 120 cases. When a student is assisting, they can\'t count the case; they must have passed. Clinical standards take 2 times.

Is there a need for ST\'s in this area? What do the clinical sites suggest? Georgetown brought on 3 new scrub techs and there is still 1 opening. St. David\'s - people seem to be staying put but expect some increases in the future. Not seeing any turnover right now. Brackenridge just employed 4 new techs. Becky Stewart said they hire our new graduates first. When the faculty talks to the students about the pay range when they graduate: St. David\'s has 3 levels starting with Level 1, Level 2, Level 3. Surg Techs at Seton have to have a leader, increase responsibilities and need a degree to be a Lead Tech. There was a map in everyone\'s packet that gave the 2011 average hourly pay rate of AST members by state. Everyone looked through their clinical site evaluations. A question was asked - do we follow up employment for graduates? Answer: Not anymore.

Laparascopy instruments - should they be counted? Should procedures that require a lot of small pieces put everything in the count. Some facilities do and some don\'t; Management makes the determination. If not all of the instruments aren\'t counted Management may have an x-ray taken at the end of the procedure. Becky Stewart mentioned this just makes another added burden for the scrub.

Pedro showed slides of the new Round Rock Campus and discussed some of the new items they received. Round Rock Campus students are also doing clinical spread throughout the metro area, not just in Round Rock.

Pedro discussed the 13 best septic techniques in the lab.

We will be having our ARC-ST site visit in July 2011.

Next meeting will be in November 2012