Life as a Sterile Tech...

Basically, my new job is AWESOME!!! It's tiring and slighty overwhelming, but I'm slowly getting the hang of everything. The first thing I do when I get to work is clock in (obviously) and then I head over to the scrubs dispenser to pick up my work attire. Yes, it really does dispense my scrubs. Pretty much, its one of the coolest machines I've ever seen. (p.s. I LOVE scrubs.)
Then I go into the locker room to change into my scrubs. This is the same locker room that surgeons and nurses use, so that should tell you right away just how important they think I am. haha. :) Really, the lockers are only like 6 inches wide, AND I have to share with someone else. So pretty much, I have about 3 inches for all of my things. Fun stuff.....
Once I'm in my scrubs, I put on my glamorous hairnet (you all WISH you could be as cool as me and wear hairnets to work) and then head through the big double doors with big bold read signs that say "Authorized Personnel Only. Only Surgical Attire Allowed Through These Doors."

:D

Then I head into the Sterile Processing Unit, which is where I spend my 5 hour shift!! It's a really cool room with literally THOUSANDS of tools and instruments just stacked and waiting for their turn to be involved in a surgery. Probably the coolest thing about this room is that it's attached to a short hallway with two doors on either side. Right behind these four doors are the Operating Rooms!! The doors have big windows on them, so when we have down time I can walk on over there and watch surgeries to my heart's content!! It's SO COOL!!!!
On a typical shift, they'll usually put me to work pulling case carts. So, before a surgery takes place, the surgeon will sit down and make a list of all the tools and instruments that he will need in order to do the procedure. He then gives that list to us (which sometimes can be 3 or 4 pages long) and then its our job to put together a cart of all the things that he'll need. The list includes all kinds of things ranging from water to bandages to needles to forceps to cotton balls to staplers to drill bits to toothbrushes. I'll let you use your imagination as to what those things are for :) On average, it'll take me about 20-30 minutes to pull one case cart. Yesterday, in my 5 hour shift, I pulled 8. But I'm still new and I still have a lot to learn, but I'm slowly figuring out where everything is. There's a lot of bending and lifting involved (because some of those sets of instruments are HEAVY), so usually at the end of my shift I'm just about ready to fall over. But I really do like it, the things that I do make the time go by super fast.
Up to this point, I've really loved this change in my life. The atmosphere is fun, the people I work with are fun, and its just really awesome being in a medical environment.