Beyond Clean Canada: Built to Last: Career Pathways & Professional Growth in MDR

0:00As I move from attacking to an educator role, it's very motivating to think about how will I communicate that information to another generation of texts, how am I helping them to feel successful, how am I helping them to see the purpose in what we do. That we are purpose driven work, that's been really, really encouraging for me and engaging, and then hopefully that passion that I have for the work that we do is going to continue to pass on to the people that I have the opportunity to impact as an educator. What if one conversation could save a life? What if one new process or new product could save a patient from surgical harm? Broadcasting from a hospital basement near you, you're listening to the Beyond Clean Canada podcast, the voice of medical device reprocessing from C to C to C.

1:00Each week we spotlight the people, processes and products from around the country and the world that are disrupting our profession and helping you fight dirty, every instrument, every time. Join us as we have the kinds of conversations that matter and give our industry the kind of voice that it deserves. And now it's time to go true North Strong and Beyond Clean. This is a paid advertisement from Solventum. Do you include a B.I. and C.I. in every sterilization load? Biological indicators demonstrate the lethality of the sterilization cycle while Type 5 steam and Type 4, or vaporized hydrogen peroxide, chemical indicators monitor critical parameters of exposure time, temperature, and sterile presence.

2:05Together they help you create a comprehensive defense against contamination and uphold the safety of every patient who places their trust in your facility. Enhance your sterilization standards. 3M Health Care is now Solventum. Your same account manager is here to support you. Reach out today. From the studios of Health Care HQ, you're listening to Beyond Clean Canada, the voice of sterile processing from C to C to C. On today's episode, we want to welcome two Alberta clean freaks, Colin Pennman and Luke Seawirtz to our Beyond Clean Canada podcast.

3:10And we wanted to hear what these two, these guys have been with us since the beginning of Beyond Clean Canada. They've been showing us so much love and support. Stacey and I appreciate you guys so much. And we want to hear what makes you guys tick. So, Colin, can you share a little bit about yourself and Luke, can you follow a little bit after Colin? For sure. Thank you guys so much for having us on. Like you said, Luke and I have been super fans from day one. I think for me, I'm currently working as a rural educator in Alberta. I started my MDR journey about three years ago. Before that, I had been working in health care administration. But many, many years ago, I had worked in a non-hospital surgical facility. They did most skin cancer surgeries and just from natural curiosity, I started asking the nurses, what's that? What are you doing with that? And that led to me helping them with their most packs and helping to set up ORs. Like happened and I went in a different direction. But then a few years ago, I was doing caregiving for a family member.

4:13And there's so many more options now to take MDR courses in a flexible way. So you can do them online, you can do them distance. And it was a really good opportunity for me to get back to something that it treats my interest years ago. And now I've drunk the Kool-Aid. I really love the work that we do. That's great. That is great. Whereabouts in Alberta, are you calling? I'm supporting cameras, Bonnieville, Vegaville and Baths, but primarily based in cameras. So right in the mountains. Yeah, I haven't got to go to our bounce site yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Okay, okay. That's beautiful. Well, that's awesome. And thank you so much for all your hard work, Carly. Thank you. Luke, tell us about yourself. Tell me about yourself. Seems like Barry already knows you. I am a MDRT based at the Royal Alexandra Hospital here in Edmonton. We are the biggest MDR site in Western Canada. We do, on average, 120 to 140 surgeries a day.

5:17What? Full swing. And it's crazy because we do like ophthalmology. We do ENT, gynecology and orthopedic, neuro, urology and thoracic. And so we do like everything. So there's never a dull moment at the Royalic. And we even have our own separate satellite MDR area called OSC, orthopedic surgery center within the Royal Alexandra Hospital. So we have, they just do orthopedic, but now due to trying to increase the case counts and utilize the OR theaters, we also do urology cases and general cases as well. And I've been at the Royalic for about a year now, and it's been a really great opportunity just to kind of grow as an MDRT and just, yeah, continuous learning. Because we're always going to learn something. We even had an in-service on Friday, so there's always learning.

6:17I know our listeners can't see my face right now, but I am blown away. 100 in how many cases a day? 120 to 140. The most I've seen in the day is 153. Wow. How many theaters within the hospital? So there's like, we help three different ORs. Like we help DOR and GR and WR, which is Women's Core. So you are, they have five theaters, but Cross Cancer Institute, a separate BHS facility. There are ORs getting renovated in their MDR. So they're actually doing their CCI cases here at the Royalic. That's a one utilization of the theater. And then GR, we have 10 theaters, but it's like all ophthalmology. So we get like so many cataracts and no cases every day. That's like an assembly line process. We have ophthalmology at one of our sites too. And the cataracts, it is, we call it the assembly line.

7:19Yeah, I would say it's the assembly line because the amount we get every day is just crazy. And then for DOR, we have 11 theaters upstairs. That's off to yourself and everybody across Canada, but your team, Lou, wow. Good for you guys. That is. Yeah, you're covering all the bases. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. I need to visit your hospital. You should. Cool. I think Colleen, you were mentioned before that you're trying to organize a trip, actually, to visit too. Yeah. Yeah. I've talked about trying to have a little field trip day. So we had met working together at the Grannons and a busy day at Grannons. Luke was maybe 51 cases, including minor procedure. So the volume that Luke was describing at the Royal Alley just blows my mind. And we're all curious people, I think, in our field. We all want to see what's new, what else, what everybody else is doing, and ideas.

8:21Yeah, we're still trying to line it up because we're on different rotations, but hopefully I'll be able to go visit Luke and see what they're doing in the big hospital. Thank you. Because you're still at least five hours away from each other. I live in Emmington, but can you take a few more of my work? Yeah. Okay. Hopefully you're right there. Colleen, get on the same schedule. Yeah. No, for sure. During your MD or technician career, what was the most challenging medical device? What was the most challenging case ever, and why? At the Grannons, I would say the most challenging instrument was our doodinoscopes or our ERCPs. They are traditionally an instrument that causes a lot of health care and hospital required infections. There's been a lot of lawsuits in the States over them because they are challenging to clean with that elevator and the distal end. now, but especially when I was training on them, that weight of knowing how many people

9:21have had injuries and incidents related to improperly clean to do adenoscopes. That definitely weighed on me when I was cleaning them. I was very careful with my ATP testing and what have you. Now, in my rural portfolio, I would say it's not necessarily a particular instrument. It's the orthopedic cement. We find that in the little springs, in our fromeral impactures, in our broaches, quite challenging to get all of that cement out of there. So, it's not necessarily the instrument. It's something that they're using with the instruments when they're in the OR. And that was really the new challenge when I moved to a hospital that was doing total joint replacements is learning how to recognize and how to attack that cement on the instrument. Yeah, that is something that I think is all like a lot of times overlooked. People focus on like you just said the d-scopes and endoscopy and they forget that

10:24the challenges we face by getting that cement out of little crevices, finding that osteotone that just fits in there to chip it out. And then to be doing that safely, because in a lot of sites, we're using tape ends and k wires to try and get into those small crevices and doing that as well as what's on is that it's another level of challenging, right? Yeah. So, we should focus a whole podcast on just the same methods of how to chip away the orthopedic cement off the instrumentation. And how resourceful MDR technicians are when it comes to personal challenges. We know how to use the tools too, just sometimes we use them in a different way to remove cement. Exactly. And I know too adhesive is sticky adhesive on certain items, certain medical devices as well. They're taping drapes off in the theater and it's something that we face. Like you said, Colleen, that's not necessarily an instrument, but it's something that we do face

11:28daily on in cleaning and disinfecting of the medical devices. Yes, removing the taping cement. Yes, see? We don't just disinfect and clean, we remove tape, we remove cement, we remove ILB. Now, what brought you to MDR and what keeps you in MDR? So, what motivates you, Luke? It's funny when you say that I was actually, this was probably, if you said to me, I would be an MDRT. I probably would have thought you were joking because I was wanting to actually go to be an LPN. And then I just ended up not working out. And then I ended up finding MDR at great nuns. And it is actually a lot better than I was thinking. And I'm really glad I'm doing it because it impacts or it's like helps the patients in a very direct way, but it's not like you're seeing the patient. And I think knowing that these instruments I'm cleaning or assembling and sterilizing is helping the patient to have a safe

12:34or surgery feels good every day. And even my family, my dad had a shoulder surgery at the great nuns hospital. And knowing that our coworkers were a step in helping him have that safe shoulder surgery. And he's had no infections or any recoveries really good right now. So, just like even that in itself is like a really satisfying part of the job. What keeps me is, I think just the new technology I was at the Alberta Medical Device Reprocessing Conference. And the amount of technology that there was from the vendors I think is just like, wow, this is like that there's going to be even cooler technology coming as more technology evolves. And like, I don't know, there's like these rotating shelves booth that I saw. And I was like, man, that would make picking case hurt so much. What if there's these shelves where you could just press a button and then the sets there and it's like, and you don't have to bend your back at all. They are working in our favor, right? They are. But I've always said where the revolving door

13:40or revolving technology are careers. And Colleen, same question to you. You shared a little bit of this, but what brought you to MDR? What keeps you in MDR? What motivates you? For me, I would say what keeps me in MDR is I'm an innately curious person. I want to know why. I want to know how. I always have questions. I love research. And I like to change. I have a little bit of ADHD and I'm always happy when there's new things to learn and new things to do. And in our industry, those things are changing months to month. The technology is moving so fast. The vendors are so creative in identifying and trying to solve issues with instruments, with particular surgeries. So as a curious person, it's a great field. There's always something new to learn. There's always something to look up. And it's really kept me dialed in. And then as I move from attacking to an educator role, it's very motivating to think about how will I communicate that information to another generation of texts? How am I helping them to feel successful?

14:41How am I helping them to see the purpose in what we do? That we are purpose-driven work? That's been really, really encouraging for me and engaging. And then hopefully that passion that I have for the work that we do is going to continue to pass on to the people that I have the opportunity to impact as an educator. Thanks for sharing that for sure. And you know, Stacey and I have asked this question to numerous guests. And it's always a little different. You know what I mean? So it's great to hear your guys' perspective on that. So as Barry had asked Colleen, Luke, we want to know what your most challenging instrumentation is. Well, we have a lot of instruments that there are Alec. So it's a hard to pinpoint one. I might have like two or three, but probably the Finchetto Retractor. It's a specific thoracic attractor that opens up the chest. And if we first up, because someone assembled it backwards one time, they now make it a requirement to have someone double check that it is made properly and opens

15:49the correct way because of how important that is. And so then in the middle of surgery they don't have a Finchetto Retractor that's assembled backwards. I'd say that one's a little difficult to try figuring out. And probably MIS like laparoscopic instruments, I would say, because we have multiple MIS and sets like thoracic laparoscopy and gynecology and urology. I'd say those are very difficult because each metal hand piece is made different and has different ways to be put together. And then probably similar to the cement in up in orthopedic surgery center, we have sets come to decontam. As is like you don't get to, you know, like how they pre-clean it and soak it beforehand. They don't have that in OSC. So you just get the sets right after surgery. So they can be full of bone, they can be full of like you can, so like cleaning them can be quite the

16:55challenge, especially those acid tabular reamers. You have to soak them in the sink for quite an extended period of time because they're just full of bone or blood. You have to remove all the hip particles. So decontamination in OSC can be quite physically demanding. Let's just say that. Move, we reprocess the same finichetto and some other thoracic retractors as well and same at our MDRA, the two person system for sure on it and the laparoscopic stuff for sure. You know what I mean? That's always, it's always a huge challenge. I know we recently, not recently, but we moved to MIS racks for the Washington effectors and with the hookups and stuff like that, like that is such an improvement than what we're doing prior to that, right? And it's, there's a lot of challenges out there that are facing, but we're we're overcoming a lot of them.

17:56So it's good to hear. And it's always beneficial to have that boroscope on the other side as well. So you can double check those lumens that come off of those lap poly sets and come through that of MIS racks. Calling, you know, we were discussing some talking points earlier. And one of yours that's near and dear to your heart is how do we find community in our industry? Can you elaborate a little bit about that? And you know, I know we'll all have a little something to add with you on this as well, right? So for sure. When I was coming in the industry and getting ready for my exam, I was pretty nervous about the exam. And then as I mentioned, I'm somebody that always has questions. And I was able to find some Facebook groups, but I don't know if combated MIS in the right word that I want to use, but there was a lot of just people wanting to get on there and argue stringer versus non-stringed instruments in decontam, whether they

18:57cracked the door or don't crack the door on their sterilizer. I didn't want to get on and argue with anybody. I just wanted to find people that were doing the work that I love that also loved it. And that might be a light for me to follow. They might eliminate a path for what could be the next role that I would pursue, what could be the next exam that maybe I should look at. And for me, I really found that on the LinkedIn community. That's how I connected with Beyond Clean. That's where I found some inspiration for what I was going to do as far as exams. And I just tried to reverse engineering. I found people that were working in roles that I was interested in looked at what are the letters after their name. Oh, okay. Well, what does C H L stand for? Where can I find that exam? Where can I find? Maybe practice exams or studying materials for that. And with Beyond Clean, again, having those larger conversations around across the provinces and across Canada, why do we all have different names for the same job? Why is there five different things that your

20:00job could be called if you're working as a tech? What is the compensation like? Are there developmental role opportunities for new people coming into the field? LinkedIn was really, really key for me. And then some of those websites like Quizlet or Proof Profs or StereoWorks, even finding community in there with other people that were learners as well. That was really important for me. And it really kept me engaged and focused as I was going through other exams. And I really recommend them to anybody else. And then I'm also finding we're a small industry as much as maybe in a larger hospital. You have 45 techs on staff. A lot of people know each other. They've worked in multiple hospitals. Maybe they have supervised or been supervised by someone else. So community does become important because you're going to end up working with somebody that maybe someone else has worked with or you may be applying to work under somebody that knows somebody that's managed you at another site. So I think community is really, really key for us

21:02as an industry going forward also to talk about that compensation piece. Are we getting paid a wage that reflects the importance of the work that we do as the heart of the hospital? That's a really good point, Colleen. Ashley Berry just has been doing extensive research on compensation across Canada. And on our Beyond Clean page, he posts pretty much weekly, right? Berry, like every other week what you have pulled from what hospital in what area of Canada as to what that technician is being paid. And it's really, really interesting because I know here in Ontario the wage is very good. And I know other parts of Canada it might not be. And it's like it should be something that is standardized across the board. We are so crucial to the industry that we should be I don't not saying like, okay, but our compensation should be at the same level as our expertise in our importance. And I will always stand by that. Yeah, a lot more than some people are receiving. Definitely, definitely, Stace. Yeah, you know, this is something that Stace now

22:04have been working on behind the scenes. And Colleen had started posting different stuff about different provinces and stuff. And then I said to Stace, I said, Colleen's doing this too. I said, we've got to get ours out there too. And that's where it comes from too. Like Joe Perron on some of the posts wherever both Colleen and Luke, you know what I mean? The guys are like not so secret agents of Beyond Clean Canada, right? Because you know, you're so dedicated, passionate does. And they're always sending this love. And you're always sending us some cool articles or content for us to think about and to post as well. You know what I mean? So I think that's the sense of the community as well. You know, like that's what Stace are trying to do. Like we're trying to grow this organically, one relationship at a time. And you know, it takes time to develop that. And it's like Colleen, you mentioned it. The MDR community needs this so badly. I know we have CSA, we have Camdera, we have our provincial services like AMDRT, MDRAO,

23:04and you know, we're here at the Open Canada, Stacey and I to help develop and grow the MDR community as well, right? And you know, at different times, we'll play the role of disruptor, we're willing to do that because we know if we're going to bring positive change, disruption has to happen. Luke, I see your question on here about Hollywood. So did you make some educational movies, Luke? Can you let our listeners know how to watch you on the big screen? Yeah. So we have this MDRD movie. It's actually still available on the AHS website. The one I'm in, it's going to be released probably in 2026. But the old movie was made about 10 years ago. And for our supervisor at Grey Nuns, actually, he is in it. So you get, you get to see him 10 years younger. But yeah, it's really cool because it has a video for each area in the department, one on decontamination, one on assembly, one on sterilizing, one on

24:11endoscopy, one on case, I think case cards, but they just wanted to update it because some of the ways things were done 10 years ago is probably drastically different than now. So yeah, I volunteered to be in XFL to be a cool opportunity. So they did film me sterilizing. So in the new movie, when it comes out, I'll be sterilizing and also doing hand hygiene. So yeah, they did say at the conference, hopefully in 20 January or early 2026, it's the hope for the release date. I think they're still editing it. But it's going to, it's public on the AHS website. If you just search up MDRDHS and then it'll show a page for medical device processing and then it'll show centralized medical device processing and then all the little videos. So it is actually quite

25:14interesting because then you kind of get to see my royal hospital and through movie. Of course, 10 years ago, it's a little different than it is now. But yeah, you actually sent me that that link and I checked it out too. Yeah, like you said, it's a little dated, but wow, I was blown away by even like I didn't know how old it was, but 10 years ago, man, that was like, that was ahead of its time. You know, it was like a 23-part video, it covered every base of MDR reprocessing, the list of the standard operating procedures as well. And I think MDR actually published that in partnership with IPAC as well, didn't they? Yeah, I think infection prevention control was part of that because even this one, we had the former MDR manager, Athora Alec. She works for IPC and she was part of the managing of the movie. Instead, so she was a one-day rating it. So you'll hear her voice in the new movie. That's great. We'll post for all of our listeners. We'll

26:15post the one from 10 years ago and then we can make a little challenge to everyone and be like, let us know what's been updated since then and then we'll post your new one and then at your next conference, people will be lining up to get your autograph. Yeah. People like us and we'll be like, oh, Luke, I want your autograph. Oh, that's right. We're all going to be a new Finland next October. And that's my one life to go, yes. Yeah. Well, you're just going to be rolling off celebrity status by then, right? And calling another talking point that you had was having planned a career path in the field of MDR and you know, you'll and Luke, you'll be happy to know too. We finally had Cambert, President Daniel Blanc on for recording and we've had a lot of requests. Stacey and I have had for Danny and yeah, we've had him on. So that was awesome. He was on with another Cambert board member, Stephanie Melanchro. So it was excellent to have them on as well. And he, you know, Stacey, you know, what he's shared with us that, you know, he's, he touched every

27:19wrong on the career MDR ladder, you know, and, you know, I think calling that would definitely be something that you want to listen to on that episode is to see, just to hear his, his experience firsthand, you know, and his, his motivational, you know, he shared so much that, you know, it'll make an impact on your, your trajectory for sure, right? So yeah, talked a lot about how he climbed his career ladder, you know, because everybody starts at the bottom and we all do what we do and make our way up, right? You know, and calling it good, of course. 100%. And calling, like you said, you've transitioned from MDR technician now, MDR educator, you know, you're experiencing that personal and professional growth as well. You know, I know that you were huge, you know, even before you became an educator and you were a huge education advocate, you know, I know you recently

28:21teamed your golden crown status. You want to share a little bit about that? You're absolutely, absolutely. When I was looking at education options, once I had my CSA certification, with CSA, the option was the certification I already had, and then a manager certification that I had to already be working in leadership before I could challenge the exam. So there wasn't with CSA, a road map, if you will, a path outlined, but I had already gotten my CRCST with HISPA. When I was finishing my program at SAIT, they recommended that I do that because there is a provisional certification that you can do with them, so that you write an exam, go into your practicum, and then as soon as you finish your practicum, you send them proof of your hours and you're certified that base level HISPA certification right away. That was really nice because some of our smaller hospitals or smaller sites in Alberta will accept that baseline HISPA certification.

29:22You don't have to do the CSA where some of the larger hospitals, because the CSA is a little bit more challenging exam, they do prefer that one. So I already had that baseline. I looked at some of the speakers that have been on, that be on clean podcasts, found them on LinkedIn, looked at what certifications they had, and then started working my way through those exam. And it was also interesting, our sort of secret agent postings that we were doing of job opportunities across Canada. There was a really wide opportunity net that I hadn't thought of. So I knew you could be attacking a hospital. I didn't realize there were so many private clinics that you could work in. In our role, I didn't realize how many opportunities there were for specialization in the really large sites they may have. Someone who is a working lead only, and so that person has some really specialized knowledge and skills in that particular area. I didn't realize, though if I really thought about it, I would have known that there's MDR opportunities in our Canadian military. Didn't realize that that was an option. People could grow into roles,

30:25teaching again at their local college. They could grow into an educator role within their own site. So there are so many opportunities out there. For me, I think the key was letting my leadership team know that it was working on things. They could see that I had initiative and that I had interest to move into other roles. I also used my involvement in our social club at Grinons to show some of my computer skills. So we did a spring back into education, I guess you call it an event or a contest. So I used Google Docs to create a 10 question quiz, put up a sign with the QR code that they could do it on their phone in the lunchroom, and as long as they completed all 10 questions whether they passed or not, it would give them an opportunity to be entered into a draw for t-shirts. So little things like that were showing my leadership team that I was somebody who was driven, that I was somebody who had interest beyond the tech role that I was

31:26already in, and I think that put me on their radar headed into this need for an educator in our rural zone. So I think there's so many opportunities for careers, there's so many opportunities for additional education, the conference that Luke and I went to, we had a blast, it was so informative, we had amazing speakers, and I think even that, the CE credits from attending that conversation, were seven credits for going down there for the day, and I'm like Luke, I'm definitely looking at how I can get out to the mayor at times next year for Camdard. I think there's so many opportunities and you do have to have a little bit of initiative to go find them. I agree, I absolutely agree. So there's different programs, there's like Colleen Headset at the CIS, or CSA, sorry, MDRIO, Alberta is a province, not correct me if I'm wrong, that does require their own certification, correct? CSA, so it's CSA that Alberta, okay, so I did know, so in working in Alberta they do require the

32:32CSA certification. Did you require CSA and most sites require that you have completed your practical hours and then done your CSA? So unless you're working in a development role, we have development roles where you can come into an MDR, you are on the payroll, you haven't completed your practical yet, but you are actively in school so that you can be drawing a wage while you're completing your program, and that has been a game changer especially in our smaller sites where it's traditionally been challenging to keep them fully staffed. Yes, I think you're seeing that across Canada, to be honest with you, because of the shortage, it's that they are taking in these texts as long as they are enrolled in a program and allowing them to finish the program out while working. Absolutely, and then we have a lot more options for flexible studying. I did state's distance program, leaped at a distance program, I think with MDRIO. Now we have red, you're also offering MDRT, lethbridge, that's amazing. I grew up at Island University in BC, also offers

33:33flexible online study programs, so a lot more ways to get into the industry now, I think. Love it, love it. Well, thank you so much Pauline and Luke, definitely we very and I are so appreciative of the support that you've given beyond clean Canada because it's people like yourselves who will keep this platform running and allow us to deliver the education that is our goals. So we want to thank you so much for joining and we definitely hope to have you on again in the future. That's awesome, this was really fun, thank you guys. This was awesome, thanks. You're very awesome. Thanks for listening to this episode of Beyond Clean Canada, your source for MDR content, education and inspiration. If you enjoyed this conversation, we'd love to hear from you on the BCCA LinkedIn or Facebook page or anywhere podcasts are heard. Make sure to give us a five-star rating

34:33on your favorite app and until we talk again, keep fighting dirty.