The Scoop on Medical Equipment Preparers
In every medical setting in the world, a TON of equipment is regularly used.
What in the World Does a Medical Equipment Preparer Do?
Medical Equipment Preparers do much more than just get stuff ready. If you're working as a Preparer, you would be charged with making sure medical instruments and devices are sterilized after every use, disinfected, and properly maintained. You might inspect or even install the machine. The list ranges from hospital beds to gigantic imaging machines.
If you're doing this kind of work, you will spend your day moving about a hospital or health clinic making sure everything is ready when it needs to be. This is the kind of job where you really have to manage your time as you work throughout the hospital: OR #5 needs to be sterilized, and a CAT scan machine needs to be cleaned before the next patient comes in. Any lag in time on your part would affect patients all over the place.
Also, you may have to move equipment and reinstall it. If you had a machine that attached to the wall, and the only way to make sure it was sterile was to remove it from the wall, then, you would have to bring it down, prepare it, and put it back up. This means that you're not just getting stuff ready. No, you're managing the equipment all over the hospital to be sure it is ready for the steady stream of patient appointments.
What Kind of Training do I need (A.K.A. - Will I have to go to School?)
No formal training programs exist for Medical Equipment Preparers, but the job is one that requires a bit of skill. If you are mechanically inclined or good with tools, then this is the kind of job that will suit you. Because you'll be maintaining complicated equipment, it helps to have experience with machinery and a "steel thumb" that will allow you to get equipment prepared quickly without having to fuss around with it too much.
Though you do not need a formal education, most employers will want you to have a High School Diploma. Also, if you have any kind of training in mechanics (cars, whatever), that would also be helpful. This kind of job doesn't require a license, but you may be a perfect candidate if you are working on a license or are in school for another medical profession like "Radiologic Technology" (a field whose machines you prepare).
How Do I get One of These Jobs Anyways?
All you need to do is go where the equipment is. Every hospital, health clinic and doctor's office in the universe has equipment that needs to be prepared everyday. When you are looking for work, you might be able to get a job in more than one place so that you can bolster your income, or you might be able to work odd hours to fit your job around your life and family.
This kind of work is great for people who are in school because you can work it around your schooling, and you'll be in a medical environment, which will undoubtedly teach you something that will help you in school.
Advancement in this field usually means getting promoted into management where you are supervising other Preparers or managing the equipment for an entire hospital. Also, you may want to go back to school to learn the field that uses the equipment you prepare (like Radiologic Technology) so that your experience will help you breeze through school. Either way you won't be cleaning CAT scan machines forever. Promise.
