LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

Operating Room Nurse Legislation

MSA-AST lobbyists have been working on SB 605, sponsored by Senator Kahn, since the bill was introduced.  As introduced this bill attempts to require that an Operating Room Nurse must be present throughout the entirety of every surgery.   MSA-AST has no problem with the concept of the SB 605, however we have great concerns over the language in the bill that creates a hierarchy in a surgery.  Specifically, the language states that “a surgical technologist may perform scrub nurse duties under the supervision of the qualified registered nurse…” 

As soon as the bill was introduced MSA-AST lobbyists begun working on changing the bill and eliminating any sort of supervisory language in the legislation.  We are proud to say that after months of working on this legislation MSA-AST was successful in removing the supervisory language. 

MSA-AST would like to thank Lynda Custer, Rebecca Hall, Cathy Sparkman and Kindsvatter and Associates for their efforts on this legislation.  Our lobbyists will continue to monitor this legislation as it moves through the legislative process.

Education Requirement Legislation

We are continuing our grassroots efforts on our legislation that creates a minimal standard for Surgical Technologists.  As stated in the previous update, MSA-AST has been working with Surgical Technologists from Kalamazoo to create a grassroots effort targeting Senator George, the Senate Health Policy Chair. In order for our legislation to succeed we need the Chair to support our initiative. If you are a Surgical Technologist and work with Dr. George, anesthesiologist, please notify Lynda Custer.

We are also working with the Michigan Chapter of the American College of Surgeons to gain their support. Although the National Chapter supports our legislation we need to get the Michigan Chapter’s support. We are fortunate to have Dr. Lena Napolitano, M.D., from the University of Michigan Hospital, support our initiative. As you may recall, Dr. Napolitano was a spokesperson at the AST National Conference.

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We need your help to get this done!

Please contact your legislator immediately and ask them to support HB 4834, sponsored by Representative Marie Donigan. You may follow this link for information on the legislation such as talking points, and a link will be provided that will give you a draft letter that can be sent from you to your Legislator.

Related Links to contact your Michigan Legislators regarding HB 4834 can be found at http://capwiz.com/ast/home/

Talking Points This is actually a link to download a compressed folder that contains two versions of the Talking Points letter, one in Word format and the other in plain text. You can edit either of these and print as required.

The Word version is recommended for printing and the plain text version is recommended for pasting into a web form.

A note about plain text files. Plain text files will open in Windows Notepad. ANYBODY with MS Windows will have this editor (and Macs will have their own version). Plain text files contain no formatting and most web input forms will choke on word processor files that contain hidden control characters for such formatting. In other words the person that reads them will probably get a very messed up document if it is readable at all! So if you really want to know how it will look at the other end use Notepad or some other plain text editor in the first place.

Using Notepad is incredibly simple. Once the file opens check "Word Wrap" under the "Format" menu so that text wraps to the window (whatever size you make make that window) and you can see it all without scrolling.

Edit the relevant sentance at the top and remove the non-relevant one.

Do not hit the enter key unless you want to start a new paragraph as the web form will add them where required and it will look silly if you have too many, trust me on this. As a matter of fact this is a good general rule even in Word since paragraph spacing should be adjusted by the paragraph spacing controls and not by forcing blank paragraphs. Be a pro in everything!