MOCKSVILLE (June 22, 2022) – We don’t usually think about who prepares the instruments a surgeon uses – but they’re very important people.

And situated as it is between major health providers in North Carolina, Davidson-Davie Community offers a nine-month program in Central Sterile Processing that’s designed to meet considerable demand for those technicians.

“Students who complete that pathway are then prepared to work in an operating room in a hospital, or in a surgical sterile environment where they’re preparing instruments for the operating room,” Darrin Hartness, President of Davidson-Davie, says in the accompanying video. “Or they may be working in a surgical center at an outpatient center.”

“It’s a very necessary part of an operation that you just don’t really think about – somebody has to clean, somebody has to put out the right types of instruments for whatever procedure or whatever operation is going on,” says Allison Carr, Dean of Academic Programs at the Davie Campus.

“You just don’t think about the behind-the-scenes part of it.”

But health-care executives say there’s strong demand for these specialists. 

The nine-month program starts in August and ends in April or early May, Carr says. Starting salaries range from $35,000-40,000 a year.

“It has increased a little bit most recently because of the demand,” she says.