THE LESSONS OF YODA – ISSUE NO. 449

I recently saw the latest Star Wars installment, The Last Jedi. After seeing the movie and reading various industry articles this week, my mind started to correlate these encounters to medical device reprocessing. I still remember seeing Star Wars: A New Hope. It came out on May 25th, 1977. I wanted to be a Jedi Knight, have a lightsaber and battle evil. How cool would that be? It was in the second movie, The Empire Strikes Back, where we were introduced to Yoda. We, as a profession, are at some major crossroads and we can learn some lessons from Yoda. The article, "Who's YOUR Yoda? What Star Wars can teach us about GMP/Quality mentoring," got me thinking. Who were and still are my Yodas? What I am I doing to mentor and pass along the information I have gathered and how am I doing this? More broadly, each person, each department and how each is dependant on the other. Who is doing the training of staff? Are they competent as a trainer? Do all staff understand why quality is important? We are at major crossroads for our profession; quality is going to be a major part of life at work. Staff have to have critical thinking skills. Money is going to have to be allocated toward education. We have to share knowledge. Certification must be mandatory as a baseline for this profession. As medical device reprocessors, we need to embrace this. AAMI has recently released ANSI/AAMI ST90 in Quality Standard. We need to dove tail the various standards and guidelines together. Then find ways to continue to sharpen our skills with education and training. In 1977, I wanted to be a Jedi Knight with a lightsaber and battle evil. Today, I am battling dirty medical devices, with a team of Jedi Cleaning Masters with the knowledge, education and tools to improve patient care.