CST Surgical Ninja

From the Desk of Ashley Legg, Surgical Technologist Site Coordinator:

I am a Certified Surgical Technologist – a CST surgical ninja. I normally work very long hours away from my family. The longest I have ever worked was 32 hours straight.

I worked my normal 8-hour shift, blood on my hands, sweating under the operating room (OR) lights, bladder full. I finally sit down. The OR desk phone rings right after I change to leave.

I am on call now. There are now two crash c-sections. We deliver the two babies and now we are notified that LifeShare is coming to evaluate a patient in the Critical Care Unit (CCU) to see if their organs are viable to transplant. A family is saying their goodbyes to a loved one.

This job is amazing, we save lives. We are surgical ninja’s. I had never done a organ harvest before, and I was the only scrub on call, with surgeons coming in from all over the U.S.. I was nervous but I’m a surgical ninja. I knew I could do it.

It was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. It was intimidating working with surgeons that I had never met before, some that I could barely understand, but I am a surgical ninja, it’s my job to anticipate and be the surgeon’s right-hand man.

We were able to save several people with this one life that was lost that night. The case lasted 9 hours from start to finish. My feet hurt so bad and my bladder was full but I completed my task. I am a CST. I love being a CST. Even though every day my task may not be saving a life, we are helping our patients. Our environment is forever changing, and this is why I love my job! I am a CST, a surgical ninja.