Newsletters

As we head into the new year, there is no better time than now to think about the self-care of yourself, your team and your students.

As another challenging year comes to an end, being able to shift our focus to those in need in our communities feels more meaningful than ever during this holiday season. Learn how programs across the country — from California, Nevada and North Carolina — are taking part in community service events in their local areas.

In late October, educators came together at EdAccred’s third Better Together: Success Strategy Talk. During the session, “Certification Examination Prep Strategies,” surgical technology and surgical assisting educators shared strategies for preparing students for certification examinations and discussed how past test performances can be analyzed to improve scores.

Applications are now open for the ARC/STSA 2021 Student and Chris Keegan Memorial Educator Scholarships! Learn more about the process and requirements on the ARC/STSA website’s scholarship page. All completed applications must be received by Friday, February 18, 2022.

Despite the cooling weather, it is heating up at the ARC/STSA! Busy is an understatement; many projects are underway and yet there’s so little time … I bet that sounds familiar to you all. With that said and time so precious, let me get right to the latest ARC/STSA updates.

ARC/STSA and EdAccred are beyond thrilled to announce their first accreditation expo, AccredX, Thursday, October 6–Saturday, October 8, 2022, in San Antonio, Texas!

ARC/STSA was proud to partner with AST on the development of the “Core Curriculum for Surgical Technology, Seventh Edition” (CCST-7e), set to be released later this fall!

In its simplest form, a community partnership is a group of people working toward the same goal. For educators, this goal is to have successful student outcomes.

In the Pikes Peak Community College Surgical Technology Program, student knowledge and curriculum comprehension are measured in a few ways. The one that has become a point of interest within our department is the way we analyze students' computer-based quizzes taken in class at the end of each chapter.

The ARC/STSA Board of Directors recently elected three members to its Executive Committee: Janice Grewatz (president), Erin White-Mincarelli (vice president) and Ron Ehlers (secretary/treasurer). Get to know them in this feature.

The Association of Surgical Assistants (ASA) recently hosted its fall workshop and annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, September 24-25, which was packed with informative speakers, hands-on workshops and networking opportunities for the 65 surgical assisting practitioners and educators in attendance.

ARC/STSA is celebrating 50 years of excellence in 2022! Is your organization celebrating a 50th milestone? We want to hear about it!

With summer coming to a close, I hope that you all were able to take some well-deserved time off to relax and recharge. This year is rushing by at a frantic pace, and there is much to update you on from the world of accreditation.

Thirteen years ago, I made the decision to transition from working in the operating room to teaching full time with only a year of experience as an adjunct educator. Like most of my colleagues, I came straight out of the clinic with only a fraction of what I needed to succeed.

2020 was a challenging year for surgical technology instructors, with many having to quickly retool their courses and shift to distance education delivery. Some became Zoom experts and provided synchronous lectures while others used their college’s learning management system (LMS) to deliver course materials.

The ARC/STSA Board of Directors recently welcomed two new members, Eboni Saurage, EdD, CST, and Jay Chambers, BS, CST.

The ARC/STSA Chris Keegan Memorial Educator Scholarship is awarded to surgical technology and surgical assisting educators pursuing academic degrees with the goal of furthering their career in the field of surgical technology or surgical assisting education. 2021 scholarship recipient Kendra Thompson, ST-R, CST, shares her story.

The 2021 Association of Surgical Technology (AST) Conference took place July 21-23 in Las Vegas, NV. Christopher Achim and Edison Smith, student attendees from the Nevada Career Institute, Las Vegas, share their key takeaways from the memorable experience, including their favorite sessions, an overview of the student forum and the importance of attending an event of this magnitude early in their professional careers.

ARC/STSA is proud to announce the launch of the EdAccred website (Edaccred.org), with resources designed to support surgical technology and surgical assisting educators.

As educators, we bring a lot of creativity to our training, coming up with hacks, tips and tricks to demonstrate surgical procedural skills. We also know that hands-on, simulation-based training is one of the best ways to engage students and prepare them for entering the field. As program director, I look for simulation tools and training platforms that give me room to be creative.

One of the most important tasks when I begin a cohort is assigning my students to a clinical site. In years past, this process was completed with a few emails. However, many hospitals are now keeping track of their clinical students through an online onboarding service. These websites have given hospitals the ability to access all student information in one place, which has made it much easier for hospital staff to coordinate their clinical rotations.

Graduation for the class of 2021 (and 2020) presented many programs with a challenge: How should graduation ceremonies balance safety and celebration? We asked surgical technology and surgical assisting educators how their institutions approached the situation and were wowed by their dedication and creativity. Take a look in this round up of stories from across the country.

A student’s first rotation as a surgical technologist can be daunting. As educators, we want to prepare students as best we can for the operating room. But what does the operating room expect from surgical technology students? To find out more, I asked a nurse manager and an operating room (OR) educator from two different hospital systems what they expect from a surgical technology clinical student.