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I don't just visit the scope room once in a
while. Once a month I gown up and
reprocess scopes. It's my way of keeping
tabs on what's going on and of giving our
techs a much-needed break.
For me, it's natural to reprocess scopes.
It's just like old times. Years ago when I
worked as an endoscopy nurse at a hospi-
tal, I split my time between the procedure
room and the scope room. Now that I'm the clinical administrator
for a GI center, I still like to keep my hand in reprocessing — plus, I
get to listen to the radio and work at my one pace. More than that, I
feel like I can relate to the conditions and demands of the job more
so than somebody who hasn't disinfected a scope.
The people that clean scopes are some of the lowest-paid peo-
ple in the facility — making $15 to $20 an hour — yet they do an
incredibly important job. I don't want them to view the job as
unimportant. I think it helps that somebody higher in the company
is willing to do that job. I'm not the only one. Our financial admin-
istrator is trained to clean scopes.
Even if you can't do the job, you need to be able to recognize
what people are doing — and whether they're doing it to the man-
ufacturer's recommendations. Go in and ask your techs ques-
tions. Have them show you their process from start to finish. Just
go in as a fact-finder, not a fault-finder. "I'm curious because I
need to know this," you might say. — Robert Lacava, RN
Mr. Lacava (robertlacava@advancedsurgerycenter.com) is the clini-
cal administrator of the Advanced Surgery Center in Rockville, Md.
GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY
Scoping Out the Scope Room
• LUNCH BREAK Robert Lacava, RN, the
clinical administrator of the Advanced
Surgery Center in Rockville, Md., works in
the reprocessing room once a month.
Robert
Lacava,
RN
