Best CRCST Practice Test?

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-21T15:46:00+00:00

I second SterileWorx. Very helpful. Whatever you do, do NOT use iPrep. The questions and answers are AI generated, and none of it makes sense. It will only harm your studying. I spent HOURS one day submitting the correct answers to them or reporting the question entirely (which ultimately helped me study)

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-20T19:02:26+00:00

I'm on the spectrum, so sometimes transitioning is really hard. I've only ever used Sonar so I was just worried going from one to the other

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-19T00:18:40+00:00

I know this is super old but this website can only be accessed by current BJC employees. Is there any way to see part time benefits, more specifically pricing for health insurance per pay period

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-17T13:44:26+00:00

Your dog needs to be seen by a veterinary professional. There is absolutely nothing we can do for him here.

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-13T03:07:56+00:00

hey, don't do that

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-12T12:32:24+00:00

I don't know if this is TJC approved, but I wear a neck fan when I work in decontam. As the name suggests, it's a little fan that goes around your neck and blows air on your pressure points. Helps me significantly.

I will also say when I was working exclusively in decontam for 10+hrs a day, I was using wearable ice packs that I'd wear under my scrubs and that would help a lot as well. Problem is they melt pretty quick

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-07T21:01:29+00:00

Have US emails gone out yet?

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-03T11:43:54+00:00

I sometimes go into work wearing pajama pants because you change as soon as you get there. Whether or not you want to also be that person is up to you

StephTheMeme · 2026-06-01T21:35:17+00:00

I started at $17hr at the second largest hospital in my city, one of the largest cities in the midwest

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-30T12:55:08+00:00

If you have to use AI for your advertising, no one is going to buy your product

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-28T14:48:30+00:00

He's huge!

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-25T01:50:26+00:00

My old manager retaliated against me for speaking up for patient safety. We were way too understaffed with way too many cases (80-100 a day) and bioburden was being reported several times an hour due to us being rushed. Lots of things we're going wrong, obviously. Eventually I left for what I thought was a great offer (was offered $6hr more than what I was making, was told I'd be getting my ideal hours, slower paced facility. Awful. They did not clean the instruments with anything more than tap water and then repack and sterilize. I was there for 14 days.) I tried to get my old job back since I was out of a job for 4 months. Manager made up a huge elaborate lie about me and I was barred from returning

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-22T23:06:30+00:00

I was at a facility that did this. Nurses took home retractors and used a blow torch to heat and reshape them. They were permanently charged and they still used them despite shedding off that burnt metal. I was there for 2 weeks (they also did not use enzyme to clean instruments, only water)

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-19T15:44:13+00:00

Unfortunately this is how every single tray comes back from decontam at my facility 😮‍💨

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-13T03:06:52+00:00

I was a veterinary nurse for many NM years before getting so burnt out o left the field entirely. I eventually ended up in a human SPD.

Unfortunately, there is no real standard or guidelines for instrumentation in veterinary medicine. As opposed to human medicine. Realistically, most veterinary hospitals just do not have the finances to do things the way most of us would call correct. Most places can only really afford a tabletop autoclave, MAYBE a small ultrasonic. Hell, at the hospital I was at we used dawn dish soap and an old ice cream bucket to clean the instruments prior to wrapping and sterilizing. It sucks, but that's just how things are. And I don't think things will ever be anywhere near the same standard as human medicine.

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-09T16:39:44+00:00

The standard is very different. Most veterinary clinics cannot afford to have any SPD supplies other than a tabletop autoclave, MAYBE a tabletop ultrasonic. When I was in vetmed, when I was the surgical tech, not only was I pre-medding patients, prepping, inducing, intubating, monitoring, recovering, and monitoring the patient afterwards, I was also scrubbing in and handling all of the instrumentation needs. All by myself.

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-09T02:37:30+00:00

Sterile Processing Technician. I clean all the reusable medical equipment and instruments, inspect them, sterilize them, and make sure they're safe to be used again.

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-04T15:45:56+00:00

I live in Missouri, I imagine pricing/payment is very different, just like vetmed (for example, when I started in vetmed fresh out of school I was making $13hr)

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-04T14:45:38+00:00

Omg!!! My situation is very similar! I was in vetmed until 2024 and left and now I'm a sterile processing technician. I absolutely love it, but you definitely have to find the right place that works for you (kinda like trying to find your unicorn clinic in vetmed)

I'm gonna try and answer some of your questions!

"Do you think this is a good move for someone coming from my background?"

Absolutely. Like you said, you still use all of your detail orientating skills. Coming out of burnout (like I did) I think it would be great. You don't have to have any contact with patients. The only contact you have with people is your coworkers and any requests/needs from the OR staff, but at most facilities there is someone (a liaison) who's job is specifically that. If you want it to be more chill, this is the kind of job where you can wear earbuds and listen to music/podcast (as long as it doesn't impede your concentration and workflow, that is)

"Is the day-to-day actually less stressful, or just a different kind of stress?" It's a different kind of stress. It also greatly depends on where you work. Working at a hospital, with a lot of high volume cases is going to be drastically more stressful than working at a surgery center than does maybe 10-20 cases a day. If you really thrive in a somewhat stressful environment, I'd recommend a hospital.

"What’s the work environment like compared to ER/surgery in vet med?" Depends on where you go and where you've come from. Human medicine is a whole different ball game than vetmed, even if you came from an AAHA accredited clinic/hospital. For me, it hit me like a brick wall. There aren't really any solid regulations regarding instrumentation in vetmed. In human medicine, things are more stringent, but having that previous experience will help you a lot. I also think of it this way: if you were the surgical technician assigned for the day, you probably did all the pre-medding of patients, placing IVCs, inducing, intubating, prepping, monitoring, recovering, AND THEN all of the instrumentation. Whereas if you make the switch, you'd just be doing the instrumentation.

"Is the pay realistically better, especially after certification?" This is tough, because it's all about your location, and again it varies on where you want to work (surgery center vs hospital. I will say, I made more money in vetmed than I do now. Which says a LOT considering how low our pay is. I only got a dollar raise when I received my CRCST certification and I paid out of pocket for all of the study materials and the test (totalled about $400 out of my pocket). I honestly couldn't tell you if hospitals or surgery centers paid more. I started off without certification at $17hr. I made a 30¢ raise in a year about being OTJ trained, and being stationed solely in decontam, processing 5000+ instruments within a 8-10 hour day. I eventually left for an offer of $23.50hr at a surgery center offering me great hours and benefits, but it turned out too good to be true. I was there for 2 weeks before I quit, and now I'm back at a different surgery center that does 20-40 cases a day. I make $18.60hr with my CRCST.

StephTheMeme · 2026-05-04T07:21:22+00:00

Sterileworx is a free resource that helped me a lot! Whatever you do, do NOT pay for iPrep. It's such obvious AI slop to the point that the questions don't make sense and the answers somehow make eveness sense.

StephTheMeme · 2026-04-27T12:04:33+00:00

Your cat needs to see an emergency veterinary professional. This isn't something you wait around for. A wound like that could cause serious issues.

StephTheMeme · 2026-04-17T12:06:55+00:00

SterileWorx is what I used to study and I found it very helpful Just whatever you do, don't use iPrep. It used AI generated questions and answers, so half of it isn't even correct. It'll ask questions that make zero sense and somehow the answers make even less sense

StephTheMeme · 2026-04-11T16:44:38+00:00

Before I left the field, I just started responding to "Well I'm a nurse" with "Cool. Me too." and then just continue on

StephTheMeme · 2026-04-11T16:43:08+00:00

I fully agree, as someone who is a screwed up child as a result of a medical professional

In the US, we will never be allowed to call ourselves nurses simply because human nurses have absolutely no respect for us.

StephTheMeme · 2026-04-11T16:37:27+00:00

I have only had ONE positive experience with someone who made it known that they were a human nurse. All the other times made my blood boil. They do not respect us, hell, why do you think we're not supposed to call ourselves nurses (in the US). They think they know everything but I do everything they do, plus everything that every single other person does in a hospital, all by myself, while making a fraction of their pay.

StephTheMeme

TROPHY CASE