As a combat veteran, Steven Haddicks doesn’t like to back down from a challenge.
After 10 years in the Marines, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a machine gunner and two years at Marine Corps Base Quantico as an instructor, Haddicks decided to work in the medical field.
“Everybody loves machine guns, but they don’t like carrying them,” Haddicks said with a smile. “They’re pretty heavy.”
A lifelong asthma sufferer, Haddicks originally intended to sign up for American Career College's Respiratory Therapy program in Orange County. He figured his personal experience would help him connect with patients and make him a better RT. But then his academic advisor mentioned that surgical technology was one of the hardest programs — if not the hardest — at ACC.
“So I said, ‘Absolutely, I’m going to go for that one,” he said.
After competing his classes, Haddicks externed at the VA Long Beach where he will start working full-time in the operating room by the end of 2015.
“It’s not just about passing instruments," he said. "You definitely need to put time and effort into this program and it will show when you go out to clinicals. It will definitely show if you’re paying attention, if you’re learning fast and if you have what it takes when trouble kind of brews up in the operating room — if you can handle it in a calm manner and defuse the situation by your critical thinking and by how you set up for your case.”
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