From the Classroom to the Operating Room

On this episode of the Tech Times podcast, we take you on a journey from the classroom to the operating room. Surgical Technology Instructor Lisa Villanueva shares her path that started in the same classroom students sit in today.

Transcript

Announcer: [00:00:00] From Tulsa Tech, helping you make your own path with insights and information about the world of career training, the Tech Times Podcast starts right now. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Hey everyone. Welcome to the Tech Times podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Williams. Today we are visiting our Health Sciences Center. One of our busiest campus buildings all year round from early mornings to late evenings.

Ryan Williams (Host): Students here trained for careers that demand focus. Skill and confidence. One of those programs is surgical technology. And joining me today is our instructor, Lisa Villanueva. Welcome. 

Lisa Villanueva: Thank you. 

Ryan Williams (Host): So let's start simple. When people hear surgical technologist, they meet, they might picture like a surgeon, typically right in their heads, so they don't always realize there's an entire team behind the scenes.

Ryan Williams (Host): What exactly does a [00:01:00] surgical technologist do? 

Lisa Villanueva: That's a good question because there's a lot of misconception on what we do. Some people think that surgical technologists are the ones that come in and just clean the room. Others think that we're the ones that all we do is pass the instruments to the surgeon.

Lisa Villanueva: And like you said, some people even think we're the surgeons and we're just a little bit of combination of all three. Okay. We're not the surgeon, but we are right there with the surgeon during the procedure. So our job entails that we come in, we set up a sterile field for the procedure. We, the doctor comes in, the surgeon, we count and glove him and an assistant or whoever else comes into the operating room.

Lisa Villanueva: And we do pass the instruments, but we may also be across from the surgeon if need be, if they don't have another surgeon or an assistant. So we can do a vast majority of things in the or. Also as a surgical technologist, we could [00:02:00] travel. We can become a private scrub and work for one surgeon or a first assist where we work for many surgeons.

Lisa Villanueva: So surgical technology has, it's a good stepping stone to move on to become a nurse, a doctor, or whatever. 

Ryan Williams (Host): So you just mentioned something about a private scrub. What is that? 

Lisa Villanueva: A private scrub, back in the day, surgeons would hire surgical technologists for their own assistant in surgery. Oh.

Ryan Williams (Host): Oh, wow. Cool. 

Lisa Villanueva: For instance, I was a private scrub for an orthopedic surgeon, so when. We weren't doing anything. I was in the office with him, assisting with patients, putting on cast, taking off cast, putting in stitches, taking out stitches and stuff like that. And we have gone now to first assist. And I know I'm like throwing you guys for a loop here, but a first assist is somebody who goes to school for another year, an accredited school, and they learn a little bit more [00:03:00] of what the surgeon does, anesthesia and it's a little bit more intense.

Lisa Villanueva: And then once they finish, they're certified and they also have to do clinical hours with a surgeon as an assistant. Suturing and assisting and doing whatever the surgeon needs to do across from them. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Is there any benefit to being a private scrub as opposed to working in a general or, 

Lisa Villanueva: yes. As a first assist is what they're called as a first assist.

Lisa Villanueva: What they can do is they can, charge the insurance company. So what another surgeon would get if they're assisting a surgeon, a surgical technologist, that's a first assist, can also do bill the insurance company for whatever percentage they pay for an assistant. Okay? They can work with a group of surgeons.

Lisa Villanueva: They can work for a hospital or they can work for an individual and they can have somebody, a third party bill, their insurance, they can do it themself and cut [00:04:00] the middleman out. So there's, again, there's many different ways you can make money from doing that. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. It sounds like it could be a little bit more lucrative.

Lisa Villanueva: It is. It is. And just like I tell my students with anything in surgery, you can make as much or little. Money as you want in surgery because if you wanna make more, you're gonna take call. If you wanna make more money, you might go on to first assist school and so forth. 

Ryan Williams (Host): It sounds like very much if the more knowledge you gain, the more you potentially you have to earn.

Lisa Villanueva: Exactly. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. What do people often misunderstand about surgical technologists? 

Lisa Villanueva: Again, they think that we're the ones that clean the rooms and we do clean the rooms and we jump in and we help the orderlies come in and clean the room, but there's more to our job than what people think. If you ask any surgeon.

Lisa Villanueva: They're gonna tell you that we're their right hand person in surgery and we actually, the nurses do a lot in surgery. I don't wanna discredit them because they [00:05:00] do, but as, as far as the surgery suite, we're the ones that are doing the most. And I tell my students when it comes to the operating room, we are the only ones that went to school to learn surgery and sterile technique.

Lisa Villanueva: Because if you think about it, the nurse went to school to learn how to do nursing on the floor or in a office, and they stumble onto nurse or to the, or the anesthesiologist went to school to learn how to sleep a patient, the surgeon. Went to school? Is that what 

Ryan Williams (Host): you call it? Sleep A patient? 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah.

Lisa Villanueva: Oh. Put a patient to sleep. Oh, that's 

Ryan Williams (Host): interesting. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. I just 

Ryan Williams (Host): never heard that. 

Lisa Villanueva: The other term is induce them. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. 

Lisa Villanueva: You induce them. I've heard that. I've never heard 

Ryan Williams (Host): sleep. A patient that 

Lisa Villanueva: right? Yeah. 

Ryan Williams (Host): It's 

Lisa Villanueva: funny. Yeah. You knock 'em out with a mallet. No. It'd be a lot easier sometimes. Sometimes it would be, but no and the surgeon goes to school to become a, or become a doctor, right?

Lisa Villanueva: They don't know that they want to be a surgeon until they do that [00:06:00] rotation. Some may, but most of them will do the rotation or the residency, and they Hey, this is the niche for me, but we're the only ones that go to school for the operating room.

Ryan Williams (Host): Very cool. What surprises students the most about this career path?

Lisa Villanueva: How much? I. Detail there is into it and it's one of the misconceptions is people think that it's really easy to come in and scrub your hands. Where you see on TV, they come in and they put their hands on the water and go back and forth. In reality, there is a technique to do it. And it's funny 'cause we watch our students when they're learning to do that, their arms start to drop or they go up in the air and we laugh, not making fun of them, but.

Lisa Villanueva: At the fact that they were like, oh, this is gonna be easy, and then they start hurting, then their shoulders and their neck because they do have to keep their arms up and in order to maintain sterility, 

Ryan Williams (Host): one of the funniest things that I learned in [00:07:00] Scrubbing Hands is that little space between your thumb and your index finger doesn't get as clean as you would think when you're normally washing your hands. And so it's very interesting how they concentrate on that. And that's a 

Lisa Villanueva: good point. A lot of people miss that. And that's part of scrubbing your hand. You have to actually go between each web of the finger. Yeah, 

Ryan Williams (Host): it's very, it was silly, but very interesting too.

Ryan Williams (Host): What is typically the hardest skill for students to master? 

Lisa Villanueva: I think on that it's gonna be the individual student themselves. 

Lisa Villanueva: There's some that struggle with gowning and gloving. Some will scrubbing or have problems scrubbing and setting up the procedure and then others passing. I don't know.

Lisa Villanueva: It's a good question. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. It probably depends on the individual. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah, it does. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. On the flip side, what's something that usually clicks for some of the students maybe faster than others? 

Lisa Villanueva: I think once they get in the motion of doing things and setting up, it would be counting their instruments.

Lisa Villanueva: Because you set a routine on how [00:08:00] you're gonna do it, and you do that every time and it becomes easier and easier as 

Ryan Williams (Host): you along. So there's a set number of tools that have to be laid out each 

Lisa Villanueva: and 

Ryan Williams (Host): every. 

Lisa Villanueva: And we call 'em instruments in surgery. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Sorry. 

Lisa Villanueva: Okay. Instead of how 

Ryan Williams (Host): many 

Lisa Villanueva: instruments?

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. So yeah, 

Ryan Williams (Host): there's a count 

Lisa Villanueva: for each. There's a count. Okay. So we have to make sure that we have a correct count for every instrument that's in that set, because if we don't count correctly, then one can be retained inside the patient. And that's something that we do not want to happen. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah.

Ryan Williams (Host): That would be bad, right? 

Lisa Villanueva: That'd be real bad. 

Ryan Williams (Host): So Lisa, this is an adult program that's pretty intense over only 11 months of training. What does a typical day look like for your students? 

Lisa Villanueva: Busy. 

Lisa Villanueva: Busy. There's a lot of reading we tell them and there's a lot of tests. So you have to be able to treat this like a job really, because when you come in here, we're going to throw a lot of stuff at you in a short amount of time.

Lisa Villanueva: But if you listen and you pay attention to what we're [00:09:00] telling you. It's not as bad as you might think. Okay. Like for example, Mrs. Painter is our lab instructor and she has broken down our skills. To where we do a short amount of things in this section and then so forth and so forth. And then once we get those completed, we bring 'em all together and they perform everything.

Ryan Williams (Host): That's really cool. 'cause even looking at your guys' textbook, it's really thick and there's a lot in it. And so I think breaking it down like that to different sections, really, at least it would help me in that learning environment. 

Lisa Villanueva: Here's another example. Right now my students are starting procedures one, and that's where they go in, like they were just up with anatomy and physiology and terminology, right?

Lisa Villanueva: So they finished that today. Now we're in procedures one, and we're taking it a little bit step further. We're taking them into knowing that anatomy and how to apply it. To the surgical procedures, what instruments are you going to [00:10:00] use? What's the name of the organ or whatever that you're looking at, and how can you anticipate what the surgeon's gonna need next just by looking at that?

Lisa Villanueva: So what I do is I take my students and we're doing general right now, I break it down to where, there's two students that are together to presentation and say if if you look up on my board, they have like cholecystectomy. So it's a gallbladder procedure. So they're gonna put a presentation together and then they're gonna stand in front of their peers and tell us how to do that surgery.

Lisa Villanueva: So it takes the pressure off of them listening to me. And I find also they learn to they, it seems like they learn to. Or they understand things better when it comes from their peer. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Oh, sure. And then they have the opportunity to dive in and learn that, and then digest it from their fellow students.

Ryan Williams (Host): It's really 

Lisa Villanueva: good. Exactly. And they, I've had students say that when they've gone out to clinicals just from doing those. They can think back, oh, I [00:11:00] remember so and so doing this. I remember what they say because they also have to ask three questions and to make sure that their audience is listening and understanding what they're teaching.

Ryan Williams (Host): Oh, that's cool. That's very cool. The surgery room is a high pressure environment, as you know that we're training our students for what are some of the core skills they build while they're here. 

Lisa Villanueva: They learn how to listen and communicate. I, I. Communication is the most important thing in anything you do, but especially in surgery, because if you have miscommunication, you know you have a person's life that's on that table that's at risk.

Lisa Villanueva: So communicating, listening to what's being said, you have to have really good eye hand coordination. And stamina to stand for long periods of time and also be able to handle things under extreme pressures because you never know what you're gonna do. Something can be an easy case and then turn into something that's, life threatening.

Ryan Williams (Host): [00:12:00] Pretty traumatic. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. Where people 

Ryan Williams (Host): are yelling that sort of 

Lisa Villanueva: environment. Yeah. To where you have to move quickly. And you have to be able to think fast on your feet. 

Ryan Williams (Host): And we actually have a simulated operating room for students to train in talk about all the resources available to them. And how does practicing in that space change that learning experience?

Lisa Villanueva: I have to give kudos to Tulsa Tech, not just because I teach here, I went here, but also I've seen the effects of. Everything that we have in our lab is set up as if it was a real operating room. So the students get that experience. Of being in a real room, operating room, and we play all the different roles.

Lisa Villanueva: We even have a simulation of an emergency, so they have to learn to think best. And as the instructors, we play the surgeons and we can be demanding at times, but like we were telling students today, we want them to. Be able to handle that pressure here in a safe environment before they go [00:13:00] out there and have to experience, and it sets 'em up really well.

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. Practice really hard so that the game itself is easier. 

Lisa Villanueva: Exactly. 

Ryan Williams (Host): At least in your mind. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. Yeah. And Tulsa Tech provides some of the best equipment. We have everything that you can imagine that they need from the patient being checked in. At the beginning to doing the positioning and prepping and putting in a Foley to the patient, waking up in recovery.

Lisa Villanueva: So we try to do everything that patient's going to experience in this class. What 

Ryan Williams (Host): a cool experience for our students. 

Lisa Villanueva: It really is. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. How do you help students develop the professionalism and those communication skills you were talking about earlier? 

Lisa Villanueva: I would say, attendance. Attendance is a big important thing.

Lisa Villanueva: And what we do here at Tulsa Tech, we have our attendance board and it's a fun little, contest to see who's gonna do better which classes and stuff, and it motivates that student to be here to try and strive better. But also I [00:14:00] have students and Mrs. Painter and the others have former students come in and talk to them about the importance of attendance.

Lisa Villanueva: Showing up for work because if you do not show up for work, you're putting that surgeon behind that patient behind it may, their case may have to cancel. And if they've had family it affects a lot of people, right? So setting them up for having good attendance and also, like I said, with the PowerPoint presentations to be able to stand and speak clearly.

Lisa Villanueva: Okay. 

Ryan Williams (Host): What technical skills do students master before entering clinical rotations? 

Lisa Villanueva: They master the basic sterile technology. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. 

Lisa Villanueva: Going in, being able to maintain a sterile field, how to set up a sterile field, and you know how to pass the instruments, which is a big, important part of their job.

Ryan Williams (Host): When you say sterile field a lot, I think a lot of people think of I ran my dishes through the dishwasher. They're clean, [00:15:00] right? Is that sterile? That wouldn't necessarily define sterile, right? 

Lisa Villanueva: It is, but it isn't. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. 

Lisa Villanueva: Sterile technique is where you take a section of the or. And you create a field where only the people who are in surgical gowns, gloves, and masks can come up to that field.

Lisa Villanueva: Or like when we set up our sterile back table and mayo and rings stand, those are covered with protective drapes, and the instruments that are sterile come from high pressure autoclaves and they sterilize the instruments and stuff. And the. The drapes and stuff we use come from the companies that also have sterilized them to a certain extent of the pressure the heat, and there's a lot that goes into sterilizing something for some.

Lisa Villanueva: So just maintaining a area that only certain people can go up to. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. And for those of us who [00:16:00] have never been in that environment or may not know. Why is it important to have a sterile environment in an operating room? 

Lisa Villanueva: It's very important because if you do not have a sterile environment, your patient can get infected 

Lisa Villanueva: And become even more ill or possibly even pass away. So sterility is very important. We teach our students to look out for. Any possible chance that if you've touched something by accident you remove that glove if you've touched it. So the saying is, when in doubt, throw it out. So if you think you've might've touched it and you're not for sure, you're gonna discard it and then get something new to put on to protect that patient.

Ryan Williams (Host): What are students usually most nervous about at the start of clinicals? 

Lisa Villanueva: Just going out. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Oh, 

Lisa Villanueva: just going out there and not knowing what to expect of. Getting up there and passing the instruments. A lot of them think that they're going in and they're gonna be thrown to the [00:17:00] wolves and they're gonna have to do that procedure themselves.

Lisa Villanueva: Sure. And we try to assure them that's not gonna happen. They're going to have a preceptor with them at all time. And a lot of the times, a preceptor will encourage the students to. Maybe open the procedure up, which is they open the drapes that they're going to use to do the procedure. They open the instruments, they gown and glove, and then they pull the instruments up to the table the male that the instruments are on, and then they pass the instruments to the surgeon with a preceptor. That's across from them guiding them. And as they do it enough time, they get began to gain that confidence. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. 

Lisa Villanueva: And they know that they can do it later on. 

Ryan Williams (Host): That's cool.

Ryan Williams (Host): Lisa, who tends to thrive in this field and what traits make someone a strong fit? 

Lisa Villanueva: Surgical technologists are generally strong-willed people. We are very organized. We have to have things a certain [00:18:00] way. You have to be able to, handle pressure and be able to work with others that may be difficult to work with.

Lisa Villanueva: I think that would be the best. Describe 

Lisa Villanueva: A strong surgical technologist. You also have to be flexible. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Sure. 

Lisa Villanueva: If you're not flexible and you can't pick things up quickly, you're not gonna make it in this, because surgery's always changing. And you have to be able to adapt with what comes next.

Ryan Williams (Host): I would think you'd have to have some sort of inner calm Yeah. That kind of keeps in those stressful environments, keeps you level headed. 

Lisa Villanueva: And that's true. And there are times you may witness somebody pass away on the table. So you have to be able to have that strength not to fall apart and to cry as that person's passing.

Commercial: Yeah. 

Lisa Villanueva: I've been in those situations both with children, adults teenagers, and it's very hard and you have to step out of that emotion. And then once the procedure's over. For me, [00:19:00] I usually go to the bathroom or to my car and I cry 

Ryan Williams (Host): and yeah. I was gonna ask how you mentally handle those situations that don't go how they were planned.

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. Everybody's different in how they handle their emotions. Some may need to go cry on the car. Some may need to go talk to somebody, or some may just need to go in a quiet place. And zen out. It's just our workout. It's, everybody has their own technique to handle that.

Lisa Villanueva: But we do tell our students that and this is for anybody, you have to remember when you're doing surgery that. There's a real person underneath there and 'cause it gets so easy to forget sometimes because they're covered with a drape and we only see that section that we're operating on and when they pass away it, it really hits you.

Lisa Villanueva: So you have to maintain that at all times. That yeah, there's a person underneath there and something may go bad, but you have to be able to deal with [00:20:00] things. As they come along. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah, that sounds very hard. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah, it is. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Students can earn a certification upon completion of this program, correct? 

Lisa Villanueva: Yes.

Ryan Williams (Host): How important is that credential when it comes to getting hired? 

Lisa Villanueva: In the Tulsa area, we, the hospitals here do require it. They will hire you. But they will give you a certain amount of time to get that certification. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Sure. 

Lisa Villanueva: We do a dual program here. We do Association of Surgical Technologists and the NCCT, and the only difference is the crediting and body that, or that provides the test for that.

Lisa Villanueva: Certificate. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Sure. What qualities do employers look for in new search techs? 

Lisa Villanueva: Like I said attendance is a big one. If they're able to communicate and listen and get along with the team, we tell our students that the moment they go out for observations, that is the moment that their interview begins at the hospital.

Lisa Villanueva: Isn't 

Ryan Williams (Host): that so true? 

Lisa Villanueva: It is. And, everybody thinks hospitals are big, but they really [00:21:00] are a small community, and so if you do something wrong in one place, unfortunately it travels to the other hospitals and facilities. They understand and see what's going on with that student of 

Ryan Williams (Host): travels like a brush 

Lisa Villanueva: fire.

Lisa Villanueva: It does. Yeah. So with your question, they look for people who can go in there and follow directions and maintain sterility and communicate, listen, and just be a good teammate. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Sure. How strong is the demand for search techs right now? 

Lisa Villanueva: Surge tech, there's always gonna be a job for surgical technologists. Some people think that they see where it's getting hard to find a job.

Lisa Villanueva: Give it a few months and it turns right back around because people are either retiring or they're traveling or they're moving up in their education. There's many different avenues that open up a position or people just decide it's not for them anymore. So there's always a demand for surgical technology.

Ryan Williams (Host): And Tulsa [00:22:00] Tech has multiple start dates throughout the year, right? 

Lisa Villanueva: Yes. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yes, we 

Ryan Williams (Host): go ahead. 

Lisa Villanueva: Oh, I was gonna say, we have a July start. We have a, an October we did, it was November, but it's going back to October. And then we have a night class that starts in January. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Oh, for those individuals that are working?

Ryan Williams (Host): Yes. They can come to school in the evening, and that's very nice. Okay. We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we'd love to hear a little bit more about your journey into surgical technology and what keeps you passionate about teaching it.

Commercial: For more than 100 years, Oklahoma Career Tech has been training skilled and dedicated individuals giving clear career paths to over 90,000 graduates a year. These individuals are the heartbeat of the Oklahoma workforce serving thousands of companies fueling this state's economy. Oklahoma is powered by career Tech.[00:23:00] 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay, welcome back everyone. We are joined by surgical technology instructor, Lisa Villanueva. So we've already covered quite a bit about our surge tech program, but what first drew you to the operating room environment? What pulled you into the industry? 

Lisa Villanueva: I, as a child, I always wanted to be a surgeon, and life happens as we know, and my course of education took a turn and when I came back to it, I actually went to school here my junior, senior year of high school. You're alum in Allied. That's so awesome in Allied Health Careers and wanda Gimlin and Susie Hymes were my instructors, and across from us was the surgical tech program with Billy Cobol and Francis Maddox, and I would see those people.

Lisa Villanueva: And we also went to nationals together for HOSA and vca. So I got to know more and [00:24:00] learn more about the program, and the more I knew, the more I fell in love with it. And we also had an instructor here Tammy Holt or Roper, who was a surgical technologist and then ended up becoming a, an instructor here herself.

Lisa Villanueva: But she had told me about the program and what it entailed, and I decided, okay, I'm gonna try that. And I did. And I fell in love with it. And Tammy actually is the one who precepted me when I started doing open heart procedures. 

Ryan Williams (Host): That's cool. 

Lisa Villanueva: So it's been a full circle for me on everything. 

Ryan Williams (Host): That's crazy.

Ryan Williams (Host): And where did you get that passion as a kid for surgery? 

Lisa Villanueva: I just love science. Science is a big thing for me, science and history, and they just appeal to me and the human body and how it works. And the brain is fascinating for me, even though I'm not a big neural fan in surgery. My passions were orthopedic and on hearts as far as specialties go.

Ryan Williams (Host): Why? Why did [00:25:00] you have a passion for those two? 

Lisa Villanueva: For orthopedics, it's just that, I know it sounds gory, but it's putting a bone back together that is twisted and broken. 

Lisa Villanueva: It's like a puzzle and you have to find the pieces to put back together correctly so that patient could hopefully one day walk.

Lisa Villanueva: As well as they can after they've recovered. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. 

Lisa Villanueva: And for open hearts, it's just the fascination of the heart alone and getting to hold a heart, getting 

Ryan Williams (Host): to, 

Lisa Villanueva: yeah. 

Ryan Williams (Host): I don't know. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams (Host): How I feel about that. 

Lisa Villanueva: So it's just those two, I think they're just really interesting. Specialties.

Lisa Villanueva: And to see the outcome of them is, I think, very rewarding. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Do you grew up in this area, healthcare, had a passion for it, but do, was there a moment you realized surgical technology was the right path for you? I. 

Lisa Villanueva: It's always been the right path. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. 

Lisa Villanueva: You born with it, I have to say. Yeah. I remember when I started [00:26:00] at St.

Lisa Villanueva: Francis and when I went out to clinicals from here I was with Francis Maddox and we were at St. Francis and we just finished our day up and we were doing our debriefing and she came to me and she said, I need to talk to you. And I was like, okay, am I in trouble? And she said. Would you like to work here?

Lisa Villanueva: I'm like, yeah. Who wouldn't? It was St. Francis. Everybody wanted to work there at the time. 

Announcer: Yeah. 

Lisa Villanueva: And she said Dr. Gustafson, who was the chief surgeon at the time, he had seen you and worked with you today and really thought you did a well job and would like you to come and work here if you want.

Lisa Villanueva: And I said, yes, I do. So that was my start. 

Ryan Williams (Host): What 

Lisa Villanueva: an 

Ryan Williams (Host): interview. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. And. I never stopped from there. I looked forward, if it sounds crazy, to going to work every morning. It was just exciting. 

Ryan Williams (Host): What was your first day like? 

Lisa Villanueva: Oh my gosh, that's been 36 years ago. I don't remember. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. Okay. [00:27:00] 

Lisa Villanueva: It's been a long time ago.

Ryan Williams (Host): Who do you think influenced you the most early on in your career? 

Lisa Villanueva: I had, I can contribute that to several people. Like I said, Susie Hines and Wa Gimlin the passion of learning allied Health Careers and then Billy Coble herself was a big, mentor of mine, and I still think of her all the time.

Lisa Villanueva: And Billy was actually the very first person in the United States to set for the surgical technology certificate. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Really? 

Lisa Villanueva: Yes. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Wow. 

Lisa Villanueva: Our own Billy Cobol. Wow. So her certificate was 0, 0, 0. Point one or something like that. That's 

Lisa Villanueva: Cool. Yeah. Yeah. But going out there, I would say there was a woman named Sandy Edwards.

Lisa Villanueva: She worked with a group of surgeons, general surgeons, Dr. Siemens, who worked here with us for a little bit Dr. Frame, Dr. Gustafson and some of the others. And she was my preceptor in general as well as Sherry. Coum I don't know if I'm saying Sherry's [00:28:00] last name right? But Sherry was an instructor here as all as well.

Lisa Villanueva: But they taught me general surgery and they had the passion for it and really guided me through what I needed to know and how to do things. And then Tammy Roper, who was a, an instructor, taught me hearts. 

Lisa Villanueva: So I had some really amazing preceptors that molded me and. Gave me the passion to do what I did.

Ryan Williams (Host): I would think healthcare really lends itself to needing to have some type of mentorship. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams (Host): To help guide you through. All the details of everything that happens has to happen on a daily 

Lisa Villanueva: basis. Yeah. And if you have that good preceptor, it really does make a difference. It could make or break a surgical technologist, in my opinion.

Lisa Villanueva: Sure. It can turn you off from if you have somebody that's bad to not wanting to do that anymore. For sure. But if you have somebody that has a passion for it that is willing to guide you and show you the little tricks and [00:29:00] stuff, it's gonna. Set that seed for you to want to do more? 

Ryan Williams (Host): For sure.

Ryan Williams (Host): What skills separate a good surgical technologist from a great one? 

Lisa Villanueva: A good surgical technologist is a person that goes in just to do the job knows how to set up the procedure, to do the procedure, and that's it. A great one is one that has a passion. They are the people who, the surgeon does not even have to say anything.

Lisa Villanueva: They can hold their hand out and that surgical technologist knows what to put in there. So to me, a great surgical technologist. Works with the surgeon as one. And we have a surgeon in Tulsa that's a heart surgeon that graduated from Mildred's C Class the night class here. Dr. Neil. And his private scrub is a mother of one of my students who works at Hillcrest.

Lisa Villanueva: And the two of them [00:30:00] work so well together that again, they don't have to speak, they know what the next step is and he knows that she can trust that she's gonna put it in his hand, it's gonna be safely done. And it's just, like a. I don't know, like one person together, 

Ryan Williams (Host): Oiled machine. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Williams (Host): What motivated you to step outta the operating room and into the classroom? 

Lisa Villanueva: Just I needed to slow down because. I was getting older, having more joint pains and problems with my knees. So standing all day was becoming harder and harder. And after working with Dr. Cole, I decided to apply for a job.

Lisa Villanueva: In Oklahoma City for teaching. I didn't think I was gonna get it. And it was actually for Kansas and they called me back and said they had a sister campus in Oklahoma City and if I would be willing to come up there and interview. So I did. And I got hired and my third night there, I almost quit [00:31:00] it.

Lisa Villanueva: It was, everybody seems to think that teaching is easy and it's not. It takes time to learn and to learn how to do it and help people with many different learning techniques and abilities. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Oh yeah, for sure. 

Lisa Villanueva: But once I got into it, I just, I fell in love with it. I fell in love with seeing their excitement when they're learning new skills, when they are scared and getting ready to go out for the first time.

Lisa Villanueva: And they come back the next week and are excited, telling what they've seen out there. And then just this morning coming in, I had a student. A former student send me something. Do you mind if I read it to you? No, go ahead. It says this was at 7 0 6, driving in the rain. She says I've officially been placed on the ortho neuro team and finally off my orientation and mentor month.

Lisa Villanueva: Couldn't have done it without you. Drive safe [00:32:00] today, miss V. Thank you. 

Ryan Williams (Host): That's so awesome. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah, so I almost had a wreck crying, reading it, driving in the rain. But those are the things that. Makes you feel good, makes you know that you did the right thing and that you helped somebody gain a profession, a career, and a good one at that, and something that they can.

Lisa Villanueva: That they can have respect in themselves for knowing that they're saving lives, they're changing lives. They may extend somebody's quality of life. There's so many things that can, they can do in surgery that's going to help another person. And that's the whole thing. It's helping somebody else. And also showing that student they can do the same thing.

Ryan Williams (Host): And I'm sure seeing that enthusiasm and excitement reminds you a little bit of your younger self. 

Lisa Villanueva: It does. It does. And, I have former students come up here all the time and talk to my new students. I have one that works for life share that comes up and talks about doing [00:33:00] harvest on patients.

Lisa Villanueva: And so it's pretty neat to see the full circle. 

Ryan Williams (Host): How does your real world experience influence the way you teach? 

Lisa Villanueva: I've learned over the years that you have to have a lot of compassion and patience because it is scary when you go out there and it is scary learning all of the new instruments that we have to learn, learning the sterility that they have to maintain.

Lisa Villanueva: Just just being able to help somebody else. 

Ryan Williams (Host): You've been in this seat. What do you enjoy most about mentoring future surgical technologists? 

Lisa Villanueva: Again, seeing them succeed. 

Lisa Villanueva: And then seeing them grow in their field and, even move up as a matter of fact, we have two classes ago, A, a young girl that finished the program, she passed her certification.

Lisa Villanueva: [00:34:00] Now she got accepted into med school in New York. So she's going to New York Medical School. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Wow. 

Lisa Villanueva: And she's going to become a surgeon. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Wow. 

Lisa Villanueva: So that's what we hope for, to see our students succeed whichever direction they go. 

Ryan Williams (Host): For sure. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yeah. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. And healthcare can take you all kinds of different 

Lisa Villanueva: directions.

Lisa Villanueva: It can. It really can. 

Ryan Williams (Host): For those students who are interested in healthcare, but unsure where they fit, why should they consider surgical technology? 

Lisa Villanueva: Because it's ever changing. 

Lisa Villanueva: You're going to experience something different. If you go into, there's so many different specialties. Number one, if you get bored due in general, you might switch up to ortho.

Lisa Villanueva: If you get bored doing ortho, you might wanna go up to do labor and delivery and deliver babies, or you might wanna go do urology or whatever. Plus, medicine changes so much. Every, pretty much every month, something new's coming out. [00:35:00] And I can give you an example. When I started, we did not do laparoscopic procedures.

Lisa Villanueva: It wasn't even a thought. And around 94, I remember they came in and said, we're gonna start doing laparoscopic procedures. And it was like what is that? And they're like we're gonna poke little holes in the belly. We're gonna stick these instruments in there and we're gonna take the gallbladder or the appendix out.

Lisa Villanueva: We're like, no way that you can do that. St. Francis had the surgical techs go on a Saturday and we rotated through this and we did sim labs on live anesthetized pigs. So the surgeons were our surgical techs and we played the surgeons so that we could see. What it entailed in the learning experience.

Lisa Villanueva: So we would know how to help the surgeons hands-on 

Ryan Williams (Host): learning. 

Lisa Villanueva: Yes. What do you know? Yes. And then when we seen it happen, it was like, wow. It blew my mind. And then it just became where we started taking the bow out and everything else. And then the [00:36:00] next, maybe several months later, or several years later, let's see, around the late nine.

Lisa Villanueva: 1999, 2000, somewhere around there they started doing robotics. 

Lisa Villanueva: And they said we're gonna have surgery where the surgeon or the patient is in the middle of the room and the surgeon is over in the corner in a pod and he's doing, or she's doing surgery in that corner. No way. 

Lisa Villanueva: A robot. And they kept saying that robots are coming in area's, worried that they're gonna take our jobs.

Lisa Villanueva: And it was so cool. And weird to see this, these arms moving and working on the patient, why the surgeon was over in the corner controlling it. And then when you looked into the pod where they're at, it was as if you're inside the abdomen. 

Lisa Villanueva: If you've seen the movie Osmosis Joe. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. 

Lisa Villanueva: It's like that, 

Ryan Williams (Host): huh.

Lisa Villanueva: But yeah, it's changed and it still is changing. So you can't ever go get bored in doing surgery. 

Ryan Williams (Host): That's super exciting. Thanks so much [00:37:00] for sharing your time and experience with us today. 

Lisa Villanueva: Thank you for having me. 

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