I am a former media/news/television writer and am deciding to go completely back to the drawing board as far as my career is concerned. I have yet to narrow down which route in healthcare I want to go but I am definitely interested in medicine and directly working with patients who need care. Just as a way of getting my foot in the door of the health care field, I have just interviewed for a full time sterile processing technician position and have a very strong feeling that I am going to be hired. My question is, would this be considered good experience and a good foray into healthcare or am I better off going back to school immediately and working towards finishing my degree. I should say however I am recently married, about to turn 28 years old and I obviously need to be working full time to even consider going back to school. Does anyone here have much experience with the sterile processing field? Any advice much appreciated!
Sterile Processing Technician a good entry point into healthcare?
- Thread starter kylept88
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To make sure that we're on the same page, by sterile processing technician, do you mean you will be cleaning and sorting surgical instruments? If so, you will not have any interactions with patients (and likely not with physicians either). I volunteered briefly in one of these sterile processing units and the most interaction I had was with other technicians.
If your goal is to find a job that will help you get into nursing or medical school, I think that you'll be better off looking for another position. Even something non-medically related would likely be more useful from an admissions standpoint as it may help you stand out. There's only so much you can write about autoclaving. JMT.
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Are you me? (Same ages + need for full time + long term committed relationship + career redo.)
At the hospital I work at, sterile processing technicians have very little patient interaction. Do you have a current job? If so, will this job offer better pay or benefits? Do you have any other job opportunities?
If you want to get your foot in the door through sterile processing, you could use the job as a starting point and transfer to a more desirable position (emergency room tech) once you pass your probationary period. Given you would be an internal candidate, it may make it easier to get the transfer. Then again, you'd initially be putting in time to a job which would have minimum impact on your application at a later date until you could get the transfer.
That being said, my hospital offers tuition discounts at our local four year university as well as tuition reimbursement for healthcare related degree courses for all full time employees. It really depends on what you want to prioritize.
With all that being said, you'll get the best exposure in a patient-based position. I would suggest looking into patient care technician/assistant, medical secretary (our hospital has us cross-trained for PCT, too), or something of that nature.
At the hospital I work at, sterile processing technicians have very little patient interaction. Do you have a current job? If so, will this job offer better pay or benefits? Do you have any other job opportunities?
If you want to get your foot in the door through sterile processing, you could use the job as a starting point and transfer to a more desirable position (emergency room tech) once you pass your probationary period. Given you would be an internal candidate, it may make it easier to get the transfer. Then again, you'd initially be putting in time to a job which would have minimum impact on your application at a later date until you could get the transfer.
That being said, my hospital offers tuition discounts at our local four year university as well as tuition reimbursement for healthcare related degree courses for all full time employees. It really depends on what you want to prioritize.
With all that being said, you'll get the best exposure in a patient-based position. I would suggest looking into patient care technician/assistant, medical secretary (our hospital has us cross-trained for PCT, too), or something of that nature.
