Standing next to the surgeon

The Surgical Technology Program has a lab with donated equipment from local hospitals. A fake patient is on the table for a surgery in the abdomen.

“I am right there, right next to the surgeon,” said Nicole Skewes, Surgical Technology Program student and club president, explaining the allure of her chosen profession.

MHCC offers an associate degree program that trains students for a career in surgical technology – and is the only school in Oregon that offers a degree attached to the hands-on instruction.

“Their (trainees’) job is to maintain the sterile field, create the sterile field, help the surgeon,” said Judy Shiprack, surgical technology instructor.

Skewes is a second-year student in the surgical technology program, now completing the clinical phase. During the second year, students spend three eight-and-a-half hour shifts each week working in a hospital under the supervision of a hospital employee.

“They function as if it was their job,” Shiprack said of the students.

“The hands-on experience is priceless,” said Skewes. While she is in surgery, “I’m thinking about the patient. I’m thinking about the procedure and what I need to do,” she said.

Surgical technician students must prepare for each surgery they will assist. They also spend two days a week in lecture.

Skewes finds videos the most helpful way to understand a procedure, but also uses her textbook and notes.

During the first year in the Mt. Hood program, students take both lecture and lab courses. There is a room set up like an operating room, with supplies donated by local hospitals. “We have been told that this is one of the best labs in the country,” said Shiprack.

“When it’s all draped out in lab practice, it looks like a real surgery,” Skewes added.

First-year students spend time in labs, some of which are run like a real surgery. But there’s more work to do.

“We do expect our students to practice in the lab outside of class time during that first year to hone their skills,” said Shiprack.

Starting in the fall term of their second year, participants are placed in hospitals and local other health care facilities the program holds contracts with. Each following term, the students switch facilities.

Shiprack said, “The hospitals are seeing them (at work). So, we basically tell them it’s a nine month interview.”

She, along with the other full- and part-time program instructors, is still active in the allied health industry. Shiprack is an operating room nurse.

“What we teach (students), we’re seeing and doing also,” she said.

Each year, the program accepts about 24 students and produces about 18 graduates.

The program’s job placement rate is near 100 percent. If more students were willing to head out of state, or go to another part of Oregon, “it would be 100 percent all of the time,” said Shiprack.

The MHCC students take a national certification exam before graduating, which allows them to work in most hospitals.

Hospitals seek experienced technicians, but often accept MHCC graduates because they know what the program entails and have observed students during their clinical internships, Shiprack said.

“The type of program we run is setting them up for success,” she said.

Many Mt. Hood program alumni have moved on to careers in nursing or as a physician or physician’s assistant.

“It’s hard, but it’s doable, if you put the time in,” said Skewes.

The MHCC Surgical Technology Club stands out during campus club fairs.

Members bring a draped “belly” with the instruments that would be used in surgery. They also contribute community service throughout the year and will be hosting an event about tissue, organ and blood donations in the spring.

The club includes mostly members of the surgical technician program.

For those interested in joining the program, information sessions are held the first Monday of each month, through March, from 5 to 6 p.m. in the Allied Health conference room, AC2761. (The December session will run 4 to 5 p.m.)