ACTC and St. Claire Healthcare partnering to offer externships for second year

ASHLAND, Ky. (WYMT) - Ashland Community and Technical College will be offering Surgical Technology (Surg Tech) externships with St. Claire Healthcare for its second year, according to an announcement made Thursday afternoon.

Heather Cantrell, the Surgical Technology program coordinator at ACTC, said she was excited to announce the partnership for another year.

“St. Claire has always received students from ACTC, and we always appreciate the caliber of students that we get from them, but we had a moment in time last fall when we didn’t have a whole lot of scrub techs,” said Amanda Hall, Director of Perioperative Services at St. Claire HealthCare. “We had open positions, so we were trying to think of how we could get people in the operating room and create something mutually beneficial for ACTC and us.”

A release from ACTC said Hall, after seeing success with a nurse externship program, worked to find a way Surg Tech students could also get hands-on experience while also helping the hospital.

“Not only are they coming here to learn, but they are also getting real-life experience and a good letter of recommendation if they do well with us,” said Hall. “They are getting call experience, c-section experience, and emergency case experience, among other things.”

The current externship program is one year long.

For more information about the Surgical Technology program, you can visit here.