Give the Newbies a Chance

Abstract

If you said that I have an agenda for writing this column, then according to Miriam-Webster's second definition of agenda you would be correct.There is nothing Machiavellian about my plan. All I ask is that you rethink whom you hire for a replacement or new position.I am being slightly facetious when I say that—from management's perspective—the perfect employee has 20 years experience, is 20 years old, and will work for 40 years for minimum wage. We all know that isn't ever going to happen, so what do we do? We look for a replacement technician with as much experience as possible. If there are few or no applicants, then the salary or requested years of experience might be adjusted to attract more applicants. Eventually, you get a biomedical equipment technician (BMET) who meets your revised qualifications and you just accept that you didn't get what you really wanted.And, most likely, you never give a thought to the vacancy left somewhere else by that experienced technician you just hired, where the cycle starts again.Here is my devious agenda: I want my students to get jobs and to become productive BMETs.You cannot plan for people suddenly wanting a change of scenery, a different type of work, or succumbing to any of the other reasons people have for leaving. When it happens, you place an ad looking for that experienced replacement BMET because you want someone who can step right in and get to work. Then you wait…and wait… and, suddenly, six months have gone by, then a year. What is your plan then?By the time you finally get that experienced replacement, you find that with the money you spent on overtime to cover the hole in your staffing, you could have paid for a BMET I who would have had a year's worth of on-the-job training. An extra plus in hiring a new BMET is that you budgeted for an experienced technician's salary, so funds may be available to send the new tech to school.I initially started pondering these questions in the context of replacing retiring personnel, but I believe the problem is bigger than that. We should also consider what may happen if we add millions of people to the healthcare system. More of everything will be needed and everything will be utilized to the maximum, including BMETs.Everyone starts somewhere, but our profession seems to be at a point where we are only willing to hire someone if they started somewhere else. So, let's look at the positives of hiring a BMET I: