[totallynotcool]

I was an SPD tech and Surgical Tech for a while and while I no longer have skin in the game it's still something that concerns me.

In our hospital anything that came from a Rep, sterilized or not, HAD to be reprocessed as of it were used because there is no way to verify conditions between transport; humidity, height from floor/ceiling, biological incubation and results. On top of that sometimes Reps would only have a single tray but the doc would schedule 4 back to back caeses needing that set. Who gets the blame when it's not ready in time? Not anesthesia for putting the pt under too soon, not the doc for their inability to contact spd prior to scheduling cases, not the nurse for failure to check with the scrub, no it's the SPD staff.

Things like yankhauer and Poole suctions are impossible to clean; many packs come with disposable ones now. Hell, the vast majority of surgical equipment is disposable but hospitals are in the making money business and reuse is much cheaper. Many clinics in our hospital were unaware of how to reprocess their items and would turn in soiled items that sat all weekend covered in blood without any enzymatic cleaner; not to mention half their items were single use but are being treated as multi-use.

Man, I'm glad I moved to being an assist and even happier I left the surgical field in general.