As many of you now know, the ASA has made significant strides to establish ourselves as the only professional member association devoted whole-heartedly to all surgical assistants. Well, we have done it! There has been nothing but positive feedback and a whirl wind of support while here at conference. With the backing and blessing of the AST BOD and the continually improving relations with our brothers at NSAA and ABSA, we need all of you, CFAs, CSAs, and SA-Cs to join us in this historic moment. We are the founders of a new chapter in the history of the OR.
While here at the 2010 conference in Dallas, TX we laid the foundations of this organization by formally introducing the interim board of directors, conducting our business sessions apart from AST with our own members for the first time, and by firming up our coming educational opportunities, which will feature a cadaver lab at Arthrex headquarters in Florida in November of this year and an off-site Da Vinci robotics lab for ASA at the 2011 conference in San Francisco. We have also been networking with many other advanced surgical companies to offer education that is specific to what WE do. This is a true turning point for our profession and we invite you all to take part.
So what’s next? The new membership organization officially goes live on June 1 and we are encouraging you to join us by calling member services at 800-637-7433 to join. A new member benefit brochure was published this week and will be available online very shortly. New member dues for Active and Associate members has been set at $150.00 and $75.00 for the student rate. Students are also eligible for a bundled package to include ASA membership, CFA certification, the CFA study guide, and more at a deeply discounted rate. Once you become an Active member, please send us a Consent to Serve Form as well as a CV so that we can begin our search for the rest of our future leaders. Remember that all leadership positions are open to any CFA, CSA, or SA-C with Active membership status in the new ASA; you do not have to be a CST or a member of AST to apply. We are currently looking to fill three BOD positions with appointments through 2011 when several positions will be up for election at the San Francisco conference. We are also seeking out motivated members to join committees and start state assemblies to push for legislation in your area. The time has arrived for the SFA!
Thank you to all of those who have made this possible. There are many of you who have fought for this for a long time and your efforts are paying off in a big way. Thank you for your time and sacrifice.
Also, we will tie up the new website production right after conference, so watch for the launch of the NEW website within the next couple of weeks.
Image from http://surgicalassistantsalary.com/images/surgical_assistant_salary.JPG
As the Association of Surgical Assistants pushes its efforts to unite the surgical assistant community into full swing, a call is going out to all those within the community and throughout that nation to offer their help and support to this new and growing organization. As most of you are aware, the ASA has very recently undergone substantial changes which have affected the leadership, structure, and membership of the organization. Many of our goals have changed as well as a result of this new organizational direction to establish ourselves as an autonomous entity apart from the AST. It is the aspiration of this newly reborn association to unite surgical assistants everywhere into a single voice in favor of a common end. As the face of healthcare is ever changing, we are facing many obstacles in the areas of legislation, reimbursement, visibility, and professional recognition. The time has come for all surgical assistants, regardless of whether or not their title is CFA, CSA, or SA-C, to join us in the fight to overcome these challenges. We are working closely with other professional organizations such as parallel SFA groups, state associations, government bodies, certification organizations, and others to ensure that this effort is a success. We are now calling on you to help make a difference in order to secure the future of the title that you hold. Without active members who have an earnest desire to join us in the restructuring of the ASA and the subsequent advancement of the field of the non-physician surgical first assistant, this effort will face a longer, much more difficult road. We encourage anyone with a desire to help to contact the ASA. We are looking for volunteers to assist with the planning and staffing of public events, the writing of articles and other publications, the formation of state and local assemblies, the organization of potential members, or any other service that you feel would benefit the ASA in this critical time. We would also like to invite all of you, regardless of which credential you may hold, to consider running for elected office in 2011. We openly welcome and encourage feedback from all of you. We want your ideas and comments to be heard. Interested individuals can start by simply responding to this post or by contacting Karen Ludwig at kludwig@ast.org. Together we can make the ASA a true success and provide a constant and fruitful future for surgical assistants everywhere.
There is a very good article in the newest edition of the ASTSA Newsletter. Heather Burggraff, the Association of Surgical Technologists Student Association (ASTSA) Vice President, offers some information about how ST students can excel at their clinical externship sites. Now, I realize that this information applies to Surgical Technology students on the surface, but I would like to direct this information to SFA students as well.
I remember back to my first time as an “assistant” at the OR table. I felt really cool and important of course, I maybe even felt a little bit of pride in the fact that I was the one asked to assist the surgeon. But in reality, all I really did was hold the leg on a total hip! I had no idea of the types of emotions that I would have later when I became a SFA student at clinicals. The first time I reported to the surgeon (instead of my charge nurse) before the start of the day, I was more than a little nervous. I had been in the OR many many times and had done countless procedures, but this feeling was different. There were a whole new set of rules and expectations. I knew that my peers looked at me in a different way. Many of them wanted me to succeed and saw my hard work as a positive step toward advancing my career and were happy for me. Others, well they were less than excited. Some of my fellow ST’s with aeons more experience than me, were apprehensive and antagonistic about my role as the assistant. This only added to the pressure I felt as I walked into the room. It must have been a hundred degrees in the OR that day. Our patient was scheduled for a lumbar laminectomy/discectomy. I was very nervous but controlled it calmly and collectively. Even though I was sweaty and my headlight wasn’t pointing in the right direction, forcing me to tilt my head in an aweful direction to keep my surgeon from realizing it, I was able to keep it together. That case lasted forever!
Finally, after three long hours that felt like an eternity, the case was pretty much over and I was confident that I had done a superb job. Just when the anxiety was about to subside, my surgeon scrubbed out and started to dictate. Well, that was great except for the fact that the patient’s wound was wide open! Though the scrub (whom I had known for a year at that point) was wearing a mask, I could tell she was smirking as she handed me the suture and pick-ups. Finally, something donned on me. Why was I so nervous? I had received great training and was capable of doing this! Of course pigs are a little different than humans, but dangit I could do this! As I went through the layers and threw my stitches, one phrase looped through my mind like a mantra, “Use the Force!” After working through my inner tribulation, I calmed down again and got the case done. Of course it wasn’t until the last five minutes, but everything worked out well for the case and the patient.
As time went on, day by day, I got less and less nervous. It took me six months to get through all of my clinical rotations as a First Assistant student, but the feeling of accomplishment I had upon completion of my program and subsequently my certification exams still lingers. I know exactly what Heather was feeling on her first day of ST clinicals, and I’m sure you can all relate. The suggestions that she lays out are great, especially for students beginning clinicals for a Surgical Assistant program. No matter how long we have been in the field as Techs, all of those crazy nervous feelings come back again when we move up to the assistant role for the first time.
Read her article here to find out what you can do to lessen the anxiety.
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