I sit down with Monty Gonzales & Bill Bassuk from CBET to get schooled on the ins and outs of the program. We all share a passion of building the next generation of Biomeds and emphasize the importance of education in the field. We discuss the cogs of the school, upcoming training, the biomed field, and so much more. You know I had to finish off a great convo with some bearded segments. I hope you enjoy and thanks for watching.
To learn more about CBET visit them at https://cbet.edu/
and check out https://theimagingacademy.com/
Watch the video podcast on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLisOVWzYA0rq9UrYCz7fU7HNBjXgwc8DG
I sit down with Monty Gonzales & Bill Bassuk from CBET to get schooled on the ins and outs of the program. We all share a passion of building the next generation of Biomeds and emphasize the importance of education in the field. We discuss the cogs of the school, upcoming training, the biomed field, and so much more. You know I had to finish off a great convo with some bearded segments. I hope you enjoy and thanks for watching.
To learn more about CBET visit them at https://cbet.edu/
and check out https://theimagingacademy.com/
Watch the video podcast on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLisOVWzYA0rq9UrYCz7fU7HNBjXgwc8DG
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to an all new episode of the beard of biomed. I'm your host Chace. And as always on the show, we got to bring on some bio meds that I've just been waiting to talk to. Today I'm joined by Mani and Bill from the C bet. If you don't know what that is, this is the College of Biomedical Equipment Technology. And I'm really looking forward to getting into the conversation today and just obviously talk biomed shop, but really want to hear what you guys are doing at the school because, you know, I'm really appreciative of enriching, and, you know, building up the next generation for the HTM field. So welcome, gentlemen. Monty, if you want to get started, just let people know a little bit about yourself. And we'll take it from
Monty Gonzales:Yeah, well, we're excited to be on it. there. Talking with you today. We're just overwhelmed, excited with the success that we've seen you achieve with your podcast. And, you know, applaud your efforts to spread the word and do good work for the industry and really elevate the game. My name is Monty Gonzales. I'm the president of the college of Biomedical Equipment Technology. Been at that job now for about four years, with my good friend and colleague, Mr. Bill Bassick.
Bill Bassuk:Hi, my name is Bill Bassick. And I'm the founder of the College of Biomedical Equipment Technology. And we've been doing this now since 2017. When it was accredited, got to reaccredited in 2019. My background is that I started off as a medical technologist and from there went to field service working on hematology and CO ag analyzers with Coulter electronics was later bought by Beckman Coulter. Before After that, I got trained in chemistry, microbiology and various other specialized Life Science devices, ended up working for for core masterplan, when I was thrilled with that, and then GE, and then after GE ended up with Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, where I learned about htm I knew nothing about the responsibilities of a biomedical technician at that time, nor was I qualified to have the job that I was hired for the St. Louis. It was one of those deals where I was liked from having a good personality, you know, being able to do conflict resolution, and they couldn't keep any managers at that hospital. And that's when I learned everything I know now about biomedical. As far as management is concerned. After that, the only thing I need to learn was how to price. So I ended up working for a company called Patriot medical, and from there they Sodexo bought them out. And that's when I quit and started my own service company up. And I found it hard in Texas to find qualified people that work for my company, you know, as far as new people, you know, tech ones. So that's when I got the idea to build the school. And one thing led to another and I did have a brick and mortar school, but due to the circumstances, I had to shut that down and sell it and then required it back in 2017, to be able to make money and one of his good friends, Mr. Scott McKnight. And they helped me for one year, and didn't require any pay or anything to get this school off the ground, and to where it's at now, it was a major challenge at that time. And we built it at a time where no one really believed in the online school, they didn't share the vision, which was fine, because if they did, then everybody would have an online school. But the good thing is we don't get upset about that because now we're able to educate and teach people do the paradigm shifts, and be able to introduce all this new cool, ready to do
Chace Torres:now it's a very interesting journey that you've had you kind of you kind of hit every part of the industry almost I don't think people realize the amount of money effort and just the logistics of running a biomed program. I mean, I went through the army program when I was still over at Sheppard Air Force base before you know went down to San Antonio, the types of equipment maintaining the equipment, the the training materials and then obviously you know making sure it all the students are prepped in the testing and everything that goes into it. There's I would love to just, you know, have y'all if you wouldn't mind us going into like some of the details a little bit about like, what does it take To keep a biomed program running such as yours, you know, because I want people to appreciate and see just all the blood, sweat, tears, and obviously everything that you guys have put into this, because what you have built from, you know, the brick and mortar to what it is today is obviously sought after and recognized already within our industry and people appreciate what you guys have put together.
Monty Gonzales:Yep, I'll take the lead on. Yeah. It's been an interesting journey for us for sure. When we started out in 2017, as Bill said, we literally started the college with three plastic boxes full of files, that I needed to figure out which direction to go. And what's what's made us successful truly is the people we've surrounded ourselves by. Our core instructional team consists of people that look a lot like ujs, they're probably 75% of them are military trained biomedics that have that really rich, deep experience and training. And the rest of our instructional staff includes really seasoned professionals, guys and girls that are out there, serving as directors, Director of Clinical engineering departments, people 30 to 40 years imaging experience and background and just really rich experience profiles. And that's been the hallmark of who we hire and who we've surrounded ourselves with people that we've grown up brought onto the team have done nothing but add value and enrich the program. And kept it current, as you alluded to, keeping the program current and relevant requires a tremendous amount of work. And one of the things that really distinguishes us and separates us from other other opportunities that are out there is the fact that we stay as close as we can to our industry partners, we're we meet with industry, every single day, I'm speaking to a different company, you know, different colleague on the field, and we're talking about what's relevant, what's needed what's necessary. And seeking strong relationships, you know, we, we act as a sort of, you know, we want to be the educational center mass, and what provide really high quality content service and we want to, we want to graduate technicians from a program that the industry can trust when they hire, know what they're doing. You know, there's, there's always a little bit of sweat equity involved. When you hire a brand new technician, you gotta you gotta, you got to measure them and guide them and
Chace Torres:rightly so there has to be
Monty Gonzales:the game. But to the extent that the industry that hires our technicians understand the amount of effort work that we put into preparing them, that's really important to us. And that's how I bleed into that question. In terms of out, it's a huge investment. We, it's funny, in some of our courses we have we put two instructors in some courses. So we're some ways doubling our expense, but it's worth it because sometimes that interchanging communication between two people equally qualified to see things a little bit differently. It just makes the learning experience that much better. So it's been a challenge. It's been a great challenge has been a huge investment, but it's it's paying off. We're, I think, this year, we'll probably graduate somewhere between 250 and 300 technicians across the nation. That's incredible. And those technicians are going to go to work grads, really great companies just really just
Chace Torres:you were in this I mean it's, it's hard, it's hard to do a biomed program. I saw this going to David brought a hands college he has over you know, up, you know, in my area, it's a lot of effort and you have to have a passion for it. That speaks multitudes though that you have such you know, seasons dedicated and just, you know, overall people that want to give back to the field that those are the people that are teaching the future generation coming out of your school. And you know, that that's what we need, we need and I agree with, you know, while the expense may be more having to technicians, you know, you have to look at it from the aspect is everybody learns a little differently. Also, like you said the instructors are going to see it issues or perhaps know how to reach a particular student maybe a little bit differently, maybe wording how to voice a particular repair or, you know, have the insight that you could share and disseminate across your students. That's invaluable. And I would assume that also plays a big part in, you know, the learning structure, as well as what the students get back from it. Just out of curiosity, like what's your graduation rate,
Monty Gonzales:our graduation rate is somewhere between 85 and 90%. You know, like most educational programs and institutions, you're always going to have some that start. And then for whatever reason, they can't complete either they've had a career change or some life event, especially for the past two and a half years with COVID. There's been a lot of life events, but our graduation rate rate is very high. And our placement rate is really good. Our placement rates are above. I can't remember the last percentages that we had somewhere around 75 to 80%, placed within three to four months of graduation. So we don't have any problem placing
Chace Torres:that says a lot. It's, it's hard for Obama to find jobs. Yeah. Which is kind of it's kind of odd, you know, we look we have a labor issue.
Monty Gonzales:If you're looking at return on investment, and you're a student out there looking for work. And you're not quite sure what to do, you know, you can go spend $100,000 on a four year degree and get a job,
Chace Torres:check the pulse. Okay, Bill, check. Yes, sorry, I've been looking forward to using that button you just sent me appreciate it.
Monty Gonzales:You can spend$100,000 on a four year degree and then not get a job, you know, we we've kept our we have not adjusted the pricing of our program, but a few years. And purposely so because we want students to value the program and what we can offer and we want to put students to work and if you keep it at a price point where they can afford to go to school, that makes sense for them. And they know that they can they can complete a program and 15 months ago get a job that pays a decent living wage, with a great career path. That's a that's an extraordinary opportunity.
Chace Torres:Well, the biomed in general has to value education, our field warrants in almost requires that we always have to be continuing improving ourselves, whether that's going to getting manufactured trading, maybe going to getting your bachelor's or master's degree, going and getting certifications through the ACI program. We're always having to adapt, learn and just keep piling on on our expertise, because the field requires that. So I completely understand that you guys have to, you know, have a certain price point because the person coming in, you know, they have to value that. And after they complete your program, their education doesn't stop there. Right? I don't care what biomed is out there, your education should not be stopping there.
Monty Gonzales:Yeah, your your academic and your career paths need to align. And it's critically important that they understand that when they walk across the finish line graduated program, they always need to be looking at what's next in order to go to work. whatever role they assume when they graduate. They've always got to be looking at what's next. Do they want to go into imaging? Do they want to get into management? You know, there's some out there, they just want to stay at bench tech for the rest of their career, and they're very happy working in that world. But even there, things are always changing technologies, updating equipment, new devices, new new this that sort of Yeah, absolutely. Continuing education is just part of the deal. And you know, especially with this career field, the work that it is life saving work, you're touching patients that can patients lives and there's liability involved and there's patient care involved in what you do. I think it's, it's been good. I think over the last couple of years, there's a lot more recognition, I think value placed on the role of a biomedical technician. But yeah, I think absolutely right, chase that. That is an important factor. And continuing education is a component of that. I think a lot of organizations are seeing that as well. And I've noticed that many of them are investing more in sort of tuition reimbursement opportunities and things like that, where the workforce gets. And that's, that's a good sign of, you know, recognition for this field.
Chace Torres:And also, that means that the students coming in when you're looking for a company or maybe a hospital system to go work for you That's one of the things to look at, do they value, you know, building you up as a technician, or they just want you to come in to facilitate a singular need. Because that's not that's not organically healthy, you know, for an organization to not invest in the people that they bring on. So it's good that you guys are instilling that in him. One thing that I like the caveat of what you brought up to with, you know, the change in technology. Bill, I loved getting to go through everything with you and Amy, and I'm sure, you know, a lot of people have listened to the prior episode when we go into virtual reality. I'm really appreciative and almost in awe of like, what you guys have set up through, obviously, virtual reality, but you know, 3d modeling as well for teaching your students. What's the process been like, for implementing that? And then where do you see it going in the future?
Bill Bassuk:Well, the process is still in its infancy stages right now. But we're looking at a few different options right now. One, we're speaking with a few OEMs, we're trying to get their interest level raise so they can see at it and support us on the development of the new technology coming out with VR development. And there is an interest peak right now. So right now we're at the phase where we have to decide which our priorities we want to do. Now my goal for the school is to get to 20 medical devices. So when the students go to school, they actually do the VR training. And if they don't want the Oculus is they can do it through 3d on the computer itself. And then there's the other option we have that's for strategic is for having the OEMs assist us with the development or ISOs as well. And then being able to license that software to other entities that wanted you know, the one who rented if they have to learn how to work on a portable or any type of medical device. So our, our goal, our long term goal is to establish a large library of various different medical devices to repair. And on some of them the larger devices like CTE, not necessarily how to repair the entire CTE, but how to repair a process that maybe they haven't done in quite a while, and they need a refresher course in 20 minutes. So that's, that's the long term goal that we're looking at right now.
Chace Torres:If I will, that gives you all another avenue to if I can add, it's not. I'm sorry,
Monty Gonzales:I was just gonna say chase that, um, you know, three years ago, Bill said, you know, I gotta give him credit, what is it like, we gotta get br We got to cooperate VR sit down, and think about how we can do this. And, you know, if we're talking about the investment in education being expensive, and a huge resource requirement, the investment be ours even bigger. It is such a complex, technically challenging thing to do, that you can't get it wrong, you have to get it scoped out and do it right the first time. So, you know, we, it took us a couple of years to get our heads around how to do and it took us a little bit longer to to assemble the right team to be able to do it with the right skill sets and the same passion, the vision to get it done. That were there we have that we have the team and we have the vision and we have the plan, and we have the resources and we're doing. So what we what we've demonstrated at the MBA exchange is really the tip of the spear, where we see it going in terms of operationalizing those good ideas that that was the next challenge. So, you know, our our view is that education is changing rapidly. On the philosophical side, you know, we're in an exponential era where technology is advancing things so rapidly, it's hard to keep up and see around the corner, we believe that VR is looking around the corner. And that's what's next and education is going to change and all of that. So, on the practical side, now, once we develop that VR content, we got to do exactly what you were alluding to chase, which is how do you then how do you integrate that into programs and training and education? Well, we're we're figuring that out. But how we're doing it is not by looking internally, we're looking outward through partnerships. So, you know, we work with Steve Hall, at Ball biomedical, for example. Is that okay, let's let's pilot Ahmed, right, and you have to training with Steve, the sequencing maker.
Chace Torres:And he already has such like rich history of training built with the injectors. I mean, you even my company and several others, when you want to get injector training, you go to mall vomit, like that's just I've seen he hasn't so why not tap on somebody that's doing, don't reinvent the wheel.
Monty Gonzales:He's He's great. Steve's great. And for us, it's like, if we could convince Steve that our product was viable, and our approach was viable. Well, now we have a guy who's recognized really as an industry standard bearer, telling telling the community this works and this process works and look, we just did it. So that was really exciting for us to do that and that partner Ship meant a lot to us. And so we, that was a huge success and a huge win for our team. And we're going to be doing more work like that with with Steve in the future, even though he's an Air Force guy. So it's just, it's just fantastic approach. And then looking at other opportunities, we're doing the same thing. So we partnered with medical imaging solutions, about a year and a half ago, for me imaging Academy, which is an extension of our college and with imaging Academy we're taking, we're taking the good work that we've done in the world and then taken in imaging world. So we've developed some really high attorney content to build into the imaging Academy courses. The same thing, you've probably saw the the tube replacement, very technical, you know, high end types of training. And so our approach, one of the questions you asked about was how, how do we design? Or how, how are we determining our approach? How are we going after this step? And really, what we said is, if if the training is really expensive, if it's really dangerous, or if it's just hard to access, then that those are really the three qualifiers for possible VR content development. So in the imaging world, there's plenty of examples of that. So we want to identify really high end, technically complex, difficult to deliver training, and build that into VR, so that it makes sense. If it's stuff that you can train in your shop, or hospital, there's, you know, you really don't make the art around that, because you can do it right there. It's that it's that specialized, customized training, that is either unaccessible too dangerous, or too expensive to deliver otherwise, I'll have those thoughts. I'm just kind of thinking out loud, that's really been our approach.
Bill Bassuk:I'd also like to see if there's any philanthropist out there listening, please look us up at sea bed.edu.
Chace Torres:With your technology and your mindset, you know, a lot of biomed programs is primarily geared towards getting a B met one out in the world. And, you know, I've had several conversations with other people in our industry, like, what is our definition of a biomed? One? Because it seems everybody has a little bit of different interpretation. I mean, even if you look at the biomed, career ladders within companies, we all have different monitors different names, different expectations for what each level of abominate is. And I know, there's been discussion of like, what the standardization is, but what is, I guess, your philosophy and kind of your approach to what a biomed one should be capable of doing after they leave the C bet program?
Bill Bassuk:Money? Let me answer that first. And then you elaborate on it. Because I have the service company as well. And I've been doing a lot of research as well as Monte along with quite a few other organizations, because we all try to determine that answer. One of the things I've realized is different companies, you know, whether ISO or OEMs have different structures or different needs that they need for their biomed one, therefore, that's the reason why their job descriptions may be different, or the names may be different. But in essence, the foundation is all the same across the board, you know, to be a biomed you need these classes here, you know, to get your basic foundation classes. And then from there, you need your specialized training. Well, we're fortunate seabed that we linked in with a few companies ISOs, we're we're developing that training form. So they hire their biomed. One, but they realize they want that technician to have more specialized training in whatever area. So this is what we're doing through C bet to help them get their biomed within six weeks to three months to a different level, there may still be a biomed one, but now it's about mid one for the way that they want that technician and then versus a two or three. We're not quite there yet or have established that yet right now, but for the one we have.
Monty Gonzales:Well, I think that's a really good question Chase. And I do agree with Bill. It's not a one size fits all answer. We've worked with a lot of different organizations and you know, most of them do not have that answer dialed in yet.
Chace Torres:It's a quandary.
Monty Gonzales:So you know, Amy's done some good work on that. After ash did a really wonderful job is handbook that he created. I'm not sure it was a one size fits all, you know, from an educational perspective. We can we can design a program that dates I think 95% of the industry's expectation Here's what a technician should look like when they come out of school. You know, formalizing a career pathing model that includes very specific job descriptions that everyone agrees to might be an impossible task. I think you have to make some generalizations.
Chace Torres:Well, that's why I tailored the question like I did, because I knew it's, you know, I completely agreed the way to design that is, it's not one size fits all, because of biomed, one going into an ISO field organization, compared to one going into an in house by, you know, biomed program, versus one going to start off as an OEM technician, they're all going to be doing different things. But the foundation is always the same. And I just thought that was kind of interesting, just because it's one of those things that gets brought up a lot whenever you get Bom IDs in a room together. So I appreciate that you guys recognize that, and obviously, you know, this goes to for in house, OEM or even ISOs, it benefits them to reach out to your programs so that they can get something almost tailor made, that's going to benefit their organization the best. I mean, what other training programs out there can say they can do that, or have that ability to facilitate that deed for that company. That's a lot. One of
Monty Gonzales:the projects we've been working on for the past two years is a software called skill net. And it's really a fantastic software, what we've done is worked with about three or four different organizations from sort of different flavors, healthcare organization, you know, traditional hospital, a couple of ISOs out there, and went through their sort of skill database, where their genre requisitions, you know, for the different levels. And we would sort of homogenized all of that into into one big framework. And utilizing skill that you can really sort of customize your job descriptions within an organization and deploy that software to sort of better encompass and more specifically and accurately identify the requirements that are needed for your company. It's really a big, it's a huge database, auditorium, possible skills and requirements that one might need. It's a great doing a terrible job explain it, but it's a great tool and easy to use tool. And when we set out to design that we actually were building it as part of a primer educational program, initially, to help assess a student's start playing on day one, and then curate an academic pathway that was very customized to their, their needs. So it's sort of a barometer. And it's like if he needs more depth than we have curated purely in academic pathways that can either give them additional training and electronics or networking, cybersecurity, you know, whatever the case may be. That that grew substantially to the point where now we're really utilizing that as more of a lead assessment tool. So when we're working with some of the other companies out there, we use that to assess the workforce, assess where their technicians are at particular areas, and then develop curated customized training for them. One of our one of our biggest successes so far is working with Sodexo. So Sodexo, and our team are working together on a really a sort of a, a Mongoloid of a course. It's it's local device integration, cybersecurity, its network, and it's it, it's all of that bundled into a six week course. But what we did was did an assessment of their entire fleet of technicians, and then curating that content, and then we're putting those technicians to this course six weeks at a time to sort of upskill enough trained technicians to deal with that, that Goliath have a problem that the entire healthcare industry is dealing with right now. And that's the Poke device integration, cybersecurity, it really initiatives.
Chace Torres:That's a, it's a trend, the way the, it's the way everything's going. So why not have that built into there, but also to you have it set up to where you can have a bomber that's been in the field and go take these courses and get set up for success. You know, it's not just a biomed one solution, you guys have stuff tailored to where, you know, you can really enrich yourself as a maybe a two or three year a specialty tech, especially once you guys start hitting, you know, even the VR setup and you know, all the specialty modalities with the partnerships from the OEMs there's there's a lot of value here that's, you know, just gonna continue to add to the field. So it's not just I don't want people to listen to this and be like, well, it's not relevant to me because I'm already in field know you guys have stuff that people can tap into and really add to the resume.
Monty Gonzales:Now, if you're a seasoned technician out there, probably where we add tremendous value is no, if you want to get into imaging, we have, you know, fully accredited imaging training programs that can really help people expand their careers into a different area of expertise and specialty. This fall, we're at actually launching a bachelor's degree, a four year htm degree. So if you have an associate degree in biomedical technology, want to push that into an htm degree, then we'll have a four year htm degree launched, we have a partnership with Central Western University, I'm sorry, Central Washington University. And they're going to actually have a graduate degree level program that nest with ours. So we've got, you know, we've got really big ambitions to grow our educational programming so that, you know, again, that career path and academic path for technician field can continue propelling them all the way forward and all the way through to whatever whatever their ambitions or goals happen to be. But back to your point, Chase, we're 100% believer in continuing education and training, novel passwords. So you know, get, you've got to keep moving with the deal.
Bill Bassuk:And we, we have a couple other programs that will be coming to in the beginning of the year, we're going to have the Master Series management class, it's going to be either six to eight classes that our graduate is going to be teaching. He's in the process of developing that right now with us. So we have, we hire the best in the industry to help us educate. It's not just subpar individuals, they are at the top of their field. So that's going to be a great class, I believe it'll have as much credentialing as the CH TM exam. We're also have the DNV for compliance to chop a, the chop C, or B, I'm sorry, entry, the choppy, which is, you know, it's advanced basic, and it goes into the administrative side for compliance. And whether it's Joint Commission or the DNB. Compliance is compliance. And it really helps a biomed technician or htm professional, understand his job at a much higher level than usual,
Chace Torres:especially critical as we move forward, especially getting into accreditation. I mean, when you when you get into the field, at one point in time, you're going to experience having to work with or, you know, work around the expectations of joint commission DNV. I mean, the hospitals get their money through accreditation. So what does the biomed facilitate, we make sure that they're in standing and making everybody happy. So you have to be able to have some sort of knowledge, some kind of baseline for that I want to get into because besides obviously, your your you are a college program, which entails you guys also speak to a lot of I assume high school students, one of the bases that we want to do is to build awareness within the field. Let people know we're here, we've been here, and we're going to continue to grow. And this is a really enriching and fun field to be a part of, when you guys go out and speak to these students, I'm curious, like, what is the? What are some of the things that people get this confused with? Or maybe, you know, just anything that the students come up to tell you like? What What's the barometer? What's the breadth of what people take after you speak to them as well,
Monty Gonzales:I got a couple of things on that. So first off, I'm about a month and a half ago, I went to Nashville, Tennessee for the International HOSA conference. And I don't know if you know, says but host is a International Youth healthcare organization that now has a new name that hosts it doesn't actually apply to so the acronyms no longer relevant. And I can't remember what the new name is, but they still call themselves HERSA. But they they support the fostering of interest among youth, secondary and below, globally, to propel them in and encourage them into healthcare careers and fields. Great organization. So I was invited to go to the organization a couple months ago. 15,000 high school students there in Nashville at one location one time. They did give me COVID, which I recovered from fortunately. But aside everybody's Yeah, I had it two weeks ago. 1000 kids and Nokia COVID I'll just put that out there. So great organization, great event. No one, no one there. None of the adults none of the healthcare industry professionals experts. None of the kids have any familiarity whatsoever with what a Biomedical Equipment Technician is. The biggest thing They confuse it with with a bit of biomedical engineering and some other loosely attached, you know, career paths. So I work with home says really focused on, let's take that organization that has 220,000 high school kids. And let's get them to really start to endorse and encourage kids to think about careers, biomedical equipment technicians. They love that idea. So we're going to be meeting with them, again, over the next six to nine months, and starting to share for a stronger partnership and relationship with me and state organizations as well as nationally. Yeah, it's a great way to get our foot in front of that. So that's a tremendous opportunity and Chase, just so you know, that might be a good future podcast for you as well, because the biggest host of organizations right here in Texas, actually in their headquarters doubts, so even easier. And I'll put you in touch with that guy, but that's a great organization really want to champion biomedical that world into the youth program. So we're doing that we earlier in the year we had, we worked with Northside Independent School District right here in San Antonio, which is the largest school district and they have a healthcare careers College and a biomedical engineering program. So we've sponsored a handful of their kids and actually had them at our school for about three to four months, helping us do the VR development. So we actually had kids working VR, developing storylines, and doing amazing work to further sponsor these kids. And then lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't point out the good work that Danielle, but very extended Amy with sort of htm in a box and getting the word out and messaging, you know, champion and apprenticeship programs nationally, there's just tremendous opportunity just we have we've just barely, you know, barely touching on what we can do
Chace Torres:as a drop in the pond. But as we build on it, it'll just grow and grow,
Monty Gonzales:running as fast as we can towards that that because it's a great area to focus in. I actually love youth education as well. It's kind of a passion project of mine. So the more we can do that better.
Bill Bassuk:Money was an ROTC high school instructor when I met him before we work for the college. Really, okay, we met on How'd you like that?
Monty Gonzales:Yeah, I spent 10 years as a JROTC instructor after I retired from the Army, and absolutely loved it. And I'm the only thing I've loved more than that is doing what I'm doing now. This is this great industry. And I love the work I do. But yeah, definitely. Youth Education and those opportunities, kind of picking up the best of the brightest and encouraging them to do career paths. That work seeing them succeed and build on a career path. They might contact you three or four years later say, look, I did it. I'm here. That's amazing. Yeah,
Chace Torres:you go. It's cool to go back to that and be like, Hey, you made me I'm doing well. And that's, that's really rewarding for somebody that puts in the effort in the, you know, getting them to where they are to where they are today. And looking back on.
Monty Gonzales:One of my former students that slash soldiers was a last time I saw him he was a specialist in the army. And he contacted me the other days of attack Carl on the Texas National Guard. And it's like, how the heck did that happen? But
Chace Torres:you never know where you're going to end up. I mean, 510 years from where, you know, your biomed journey starts and just, you know, in general in life, like it's kind of interesting, you you have a plan, you have a vision for yourself, and then all of a sudden you look back, you're like, I had no idea.
Monty Gonzales:This is such an interesting industry because there are so many really great people out there who did not start their careers as a Biomedical Equipment Technician. You know, some of your colleagues that are in the podcast world like Sherrill that she was a police officer, and she's a great lady talking about a great champion for the industry. You know, just constantly out there doing good work and you know, just totally different background and experience and stumbled into this industry and is now you know, one of the biggest voices and champions stuff that you guys do every day of yourself, Brian,
Chace Torres:it's really neat. We have like a little community going, we got the HTM insider pack Have we got Brian's htm on the line? Horse spirit of biomed we got Justin doing the better biomed YouTube channel. I mean, there's, it's kind of cool. We're starting to build a media infrastructure, you know, other media. But, you know, it's interesting, I'm looking forward to seeing what it ends up becoming when you look back 10 years from now, I'd never thought I'd be doing this. But, you know, you're I am. So, yeah, absolutely, you have to be passionate about this kind of stuff. I'm going to continue to do it. And, you know, let's see if we uplift in, make make the field better. That's the whole you know, one of the things someone told me is leave the campsite better than where you found. I'm excited that uh, you know, we've we've gotten you guys on here, it's kind of been a scheduling thing just as always, with everybody you know, by all means are busy. We got we got things to do. I always like to end off the show with just some fun things that I've came up with that are a little bit nerdy, a little bit quirky. Because that's, that's me in a nutshell. So I invite you guys to play a couple games. A couple questions here. There'll be
Monty Gonzales:a chase, I don't have a biomed background. I may not be too difficult that stumbled into the healthcare career field. So don't challenge me with too difficult.
Chace Torres:I'll Don't worry.
Bill Bassuk:PACE is I will say though, I put money against almost anyone that's an htm he knows his htm just like he learned the college education all within the last four years. So I put them up against anyone.
Chace Torres:I think he just needs to give himself more credit. But we'll see what happens. Well, we let's see first one. acronym, and we'll see you know, oddly enough, the idea for this segment of the show was inspired by Samuel Hill from mitigate. I saw a video of him on LinkedIn and he was asking people it acronyms, which I think are some of there's just so many, it's monotonous. And I kind of feel like it kind of spans into the the biomed realm as well. I recently got my C htm certification and the amount of acronyms that I had to study. My brain was spinning. Somehow I came out on top but so a couple of them are going to be pretty easy. We'll just get you started. Oh.
Bill Bassuk:Well, that's easy healthcare technology management.
Chace Torres:Ding ding de TJC tied it up. It's coming for you. CMS. Yeah. Medical Supply the Center for Medicare Medicaid Services
Bill Bassuk:or central medical supply.
Chace Torres:You don't see that's what drives me nuts about acronyms is you'll have you know, a certain amount of letters and the actual definition of acronym is way more named.
Monty Gonzales:CMS I didn't think this was that was an unfair question.
Chace Torres:Okay, well
Bill Bassuk:it's a database
Chace Torres:works for me well, we're seeing the army as long as it's in the site site picture
Monty Gonzales:so this is a good so we have CMMS with to multiple choice You know,
Chace Torres:honestly, while this is a game I've tailored This is more to bring awareness to how much we just all Hey, acronyms last one for you is NFPA
Monty Gonzales:Oh, that's National Fire Protection Agency
Chace Torres:you know what's funny is money. You were so worried going into this and you ended up clinching the victory just barely. I'll give biller you know, an extra point just for because he wasn't technically wrong with CMS. Alright, so this one is I'm gonna tailor this just for Bill because obviously he has the biomed background but I would love to get your take on this. The modality sale price for all
Monty Gonzales:Chase Bill plays the ukulele Hey, could create an original rift for you for any of these segments? Yeah,
Chace Torres:that's pretty cool. Yeah, all of the sound segments for the show I've recorded, it's me speaking and I've just morphed my voice differently. That's one of my little things. I like playing with the show. So Elda modality is basically, where I just asked you what is a repair, or maybe a service that you distinctly remember that maybe gave you PTSD scarred you or maybe left you with a laugh?
Bill Bassuk:Well, I can remember my my worst service call that was I call it the service call from Hell was back when I was in the colder days. It was a Friday, it was my birthday. And I was in a one man area in Texas, El Paso. And so I had requested the evening off and a woman area, you have to do call all the time, you know, so they allowed me to have the evening off. And there's usually no calls, believe it or not on the weekend out there. But unfortunately, on this one day, there was a call and happened to be a hospital, that the unit they wanted me to come work was a backup unit. They were not under service contract. And I had to refuse to call they didn't call me directly. My dispatcher called me and I had told him that I was had permission to have offered in the evening. So the dispatcher called me back again and asked me to go and I told him no, because you know, I had started, I had a few drinks, and you're not going to drive when you have a few drinks. So long story short, I was supposed to go there the next day, on a Saturday. And I usually don't work on Saturdays. But my boss called me up and said I needed to fly out to Phoenix. For whatever reason, I'm looking at a sale that helped the sales lady. So I fly out to Phoenix, I get a call from his boss telling me to fly back to El Paso to go to this hospital and repair the problem. So I get to the hospital. And as soon as I got there, this lab director came out and literally was yelling at me two inches away from my face, I felt like I was in boot camp again. She was yelling, I could see his tonsils of you know why he's never going to buy our equipment again. And this. So as soon as he was doing yoga, I said, Alright, it's the right Buy Get to the unit and see what I could do to repair it. It only took me 10 minutes to repair it. It was a thermistor you know, that caused the power supplier to go out. And I went on there to tell him I had to repair the ink and I was gonna get an Attaboy. And he commenced to go right back to my face element. But it only took me 10 minutes to repair what can come last night. Long story short, that was the worst service call I've ever had in history. But what I did different was is two months later, I went there and I gave him a free pm because it needed a pm and I told him not to worry about it. And I left but before I left, he called me back told me to call the sales lady. And they ended up buying a colder as a primary unit just because I went back and did that PM. So it's funny how things change. But
Chace Torres:I think I think as mom, it's we got to recognize it. Sometimes it's not it. I mean, I say it's not it's not about the money. It's, you know, it kind of it kind of serves you well to let them know that. At the end of the day, as a bobble head, we're there to serve the best interests of the facility and the patient. It's not it's not about money for the biomed. It's about the civil service of it. And I think most people, if not all of our colleagues would agree that's why we get into the field.
Bill Bassuk:But there was a valuable lesson taught. Fortunately, culture had excellent customer service skill training, otherwise, I'd probably wigged out to when he yelled at me. But, you know, I was getting paid for him to yell pretty much. I don't know if his dog died that day, or what happened to him, he might have had a bad day. But what I do know is you get paid to be a professional under any circumstance and you don't lose your cool, and you stay professional. And as long as you do that it pays dividends, you know, you don't get personal about it. And absolutely, you have to have compassion say, well, this person can have a terrible day, you don't know what stressors he or she's going through, and you act professional and accordingly. And I think if everybody was to do that, it makes it a much better world that we live in today. So
Chace Torres:I cannot talk that. I mean, I have several stories, but I can go on a rant about those all any other time any other episode.
Monty Gonzales:Good. This is one of those transpo please do. So. When I became a warrant officer in the army, they assigned me my first assignment to operate, repair and maintain a radar system, something I was wholly unqualified to do and relied on my really wonderful Tim allowed me to save the day every day. We were at a site and graphing fair Germany in the middle of winter, which is absolutely freezing if anybody's ever been there. And in the army, of course you have pacing items and if you got the pacing I don't really needs to be operational. If it's not operational, it's a problem. So you could relate that to some of our, you know, critical life saving equipment that we have in hospital so same type of concept that they always be running So my radar might down at the same time that my heater and my V went down. And I had to make a difficult choice. And we spent about six hours fixing that heater while I was sending excuses every hour so, yeah, so I guess that's my relatable story. Sometimes you got to make the difficult choice, and I just wanted to keep the team alive
Chace Torres:you know, it's so funny with the technology that we have these days just still how people don't realize that insulation is not really a thing in Humvees at all. If it's cold, you're cold if it's hot, you're probably going to be hot. And I can I can definitely sympathize with you the motor pull days while they wouldn't be bothered related i I can't imagine an episode coming down the line just someday on this podcast just arm you know, army stories. Because there's so many of us there that just all day long. This crazy stuff that we've had to deal with.
Monty Gonzales:Right in our episode. One for night one for nighttime. Yeah,
Chace Torres:exactly. Well, Oh, yeah. biomed after night,
Bill Bassuk:yeah. biomed after night.
Chace Torres:You never know. Alright, so I got I got one more game for you. This one body you'll be able to play to it's pretty it's not so much as a game. It's just a question. Let me get the button going. To be or not to be. So on to be or not to be simply I just asked the nerdiest question I can think of as biomed. Take any medical device that comes to mind, look, the function of that device. And that is your superpower? Well,
Bill Bassuk:you want to take this one first,
Monty Gonzales:I think I would choose some sort of anesthesia machine. Because I would like to be able to just put people to sleep, or wake them up when I need to. Or just administer any sort of medications like at my power. And I would have a lot of fun with that. If I wanted to be entertained. You know, I could administer ketamine. If I just needed a break. I could put people to sleep. I think that would be my choice.
Chace Torres:You know what that power to you probably would never have a bad night of sleep. You'd have a perfect night of sleep every time. Which I think when we start getting older, like that just sounds mesmerizing to us. What about you, Bill?
Bill Bassuk:I don't know. I guess I'd like to be a database. That's why I never forget about any information. I can always have instant recall on whatever I need.
Chace Torres:That's very highbrow I would have never thought of that's pretty cool. You're kind of like your your own CMS or PAC system just in your mind. But for everything in life,
Bill Bassuk:exactly. I would have I'd be like, be like a Google I know you asked me just ask me I got the answer for
Chace Torres:the first episode that I aired this segment. And I asked the question, someone brought up bladder scanner is like I don't think I want to stick with that choice. That said, you know, probably the only one that would be worse than a bladder scanner is picking this you know Waste Management System. This This goes back to one of my my worst service calls I've gotten is in David actually put the picture of it that I sent to him in his book. I walked into a surgery center and the Neptune had a sign on it. And it said hot and smelly. But they were complaining it was the drain issue. Yeah. You know those big yellow rubber gloves that you wear or see in the old style movies. When he washed dishes. I wore those still didn't it? It still didn't help because I still had a nose.
Bill Bassuk:I do have another pretty funny biomed store. I should have made that one instead. This other one is I went into this small lab. And I knew the lab tech. You know we were actually friends. There was four of them and there wasn't a cleanroom is that a Wooten center, and they spent 12 hours scrubbing this room down cleaning. And they told me to be very careful. And I was working on a zba that had mercury on it. And the mercury needed to be exchanged and cleaned out. So it was the first time in my life I ever put on a spacesuit. So I'm walking in there hazmat suit. I'm walking in there just kind of playing around acting like you know, Star Trek or something. Meanwhile, I'm spilling the mercury. I have it on a tube and I'm not paying attention and all the mercury is going on the floor into 1000 little beads and I'm thinking oh my god I can't cover this up, I got to tell him, but we had a Mercury spill kit with a suction device, you know, like, a syringe. So I'm trying to suck all this mercury off the floor. And I finally, remember the lady's name, but I won't mention it just for an immunity. So I went ahead and called her and I said, uh, I spilt mercury in here, and she thought I was joking. And I said, No, I really did. I'm cleaning it up now. And this lady, even though we were friends, she said, she hates my guts that they clean this up, and then she had to spend another eight hours cleaning that whole place down. And there's nothing I could do to make it up to her. I mean, we laughed about it, but it took five years. So that was just an embarrassing
Chace Torres:Okay, so you're still Fred's Mercury ruins relationships. Yeah,
Bill Bassuk:crazy. That was back then they had us carry mercury in the car. And we find out now it's hazardous in heat. You know, the vapors from Mercury is very hazards in the car always had a funny smell in the summertime. So it's so bad. It's a little weird. I blame it on the mercury.
Chace Torres:Fair enough. Man. I love to having you guys on today. It's been it's been really awesome. It's one of my bucket list items. You know, I have I have a long list. And I just been checking them off as I go with each episode. So it's been pretty, pretty cool and rewarding. I really look forward to working with you guys in the future as well, for the people that are watching this, and maybe you're not a biomed yet. And you want to learn more about the field, you want to get further information. I'm going to have information in the description below for to send you straight to these guys so they can get you on the path of the biomed. And you know, just for those listening, where can they reach out to they're getting information website is really
Monty Gonzales:difficult to remember www.cnet.edu If you're interested in imaging, education and training, it's www dot the imaging academy.com. And either those websites are active and live and you get all our information on there. And we'd love love to hear from you.
Chace Torres:This is your first challenge to see if you're ready to be abominate you can remember those websites the first test man, so again, I appreciate you guys being on the show today. It was an absolute pleasure. I appreciate all that you do for the HTM field and you know, bringing up the next generation for us to you know, instill our knowledge on and eventually took over for us doing the work day in and day out. So thank you very much for you guys and it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you cheers. Have a good day but beard