New T Shirt for 2012!!

We know your tired of the same old shirts!  So, we've designed a new shirt that will begin selling at the March 2012 State Convention. 

We are also beginning a t shirt design contest that will be part of Student Day this year.  The winning design chosen will be the shirt that we order for the next year!  This will allow us to have new shirts circulating every single year.  Yeah!!!!

Dear Members

The State Assembly Board of Directors voted to "go green" and we are now using a new email system to distribute news, workshop information, and all other communication with members. 

We recently sent out a Happy Thanksgiving email to all those members who have email addresses on file through their AST membership so hopefully you received one.

All communications will now go out to members through email except for those who do not include an email address with their AST membership.  Information for the upcoming state convention (Springfield, MO) in March 2012 will also be emailed to members including the link to print your registration form.

Using email contact will be a great savings to the assembly and allow us to communicate many more times per year to members than we have previously.

If you are not on the email list and would like to be, please contact Nicole Claussen, President MO-AST at nclaussen01@gmail.com so you can be added.

Hello to the Membership!

It is an even- numbered year which means this year's election at the Annual State Convention would be a great time for you to get involved as a state officer.

During the first week of March at convention, the membership will vote during elections for 3 Board Members and the Secretary position.  If you are interested, please contact Nicole Claussen at nclaussen01@gmail.com for more information. 

You must fill out the proper consent to serve and CV forms to be eligible and you must also be an active member.  This means a member of AST and your hold the CST credential.  The credentials committee will verify all candidates are eligible 30 days prior to the election. 

Now is the time to get involved!  We hold two educational meetings per year and two face to face board meetings.  Other duties may include conference calls, exhibiting at other conferences, and/or lobby day.

Make a committment to your State Assembly and make your voice count

The MO-AST State Assembly Board Members would like to extend our sincere thoughts and prayers to those members we have in the Joplin area.  If you were affected by the recent tornado disaster, please contact President Nicole Claussen at nclaussen01@gmail.com

We are trying to locate our members that were affected by this tragedy and help in any way that we can.

God Bless

Senator Dan Brown has introduced our Surgical Technology Certification bill as of 1/27/2011.  This bill would require hospitals to hire certified surgical technologists that have passed the credential exam offered by NBSTSA.  It also makes surgical techs who were armed forces trained or who are currently working as a surgical tech exempt.  If you have questions regarding this bill, please contact Nicole Claussen at nicoleclaussen@ymail.com

It has been assigned to committee and we are waiting to see if we will have a hearing for testimony.

You can track the bill progress at
http://www.senate.mo.gov/11info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionType=R&BillID=4095331

We will be holding our annual convention on March 4-6th, 2011 at St. Louis Comminity College.  There will be a student day on Friday including the poster contest and the very popular scrub bowl!  Accredited schools are encouraged to register a team to participate.

The registration form for this convention will be mailed to members by January 1st, however, a printable form will also be available in the registrations forms portion of this site. 

We have alot of great speakers lined up and we will also be having elections.  Open positions will include President, Vice President, Treasurer, and 2 board members.  Please contact Nicole Claussen, Vice President by email if you are interested in serving so you can fill out the proper paperwork.  Get involved and help your State Assembly thrive!

Contact: nicoleclaussen@ymail.com

Hello Members!

We will be having our Annual Lobby Day at the State Capital on Jan 19th, 2011.  This is our chance to go "door to door" and exhibit to promote our efforts in getting our legislation for mandatory certification passed this year!

Come out and join the officers, members, and students who will be attending this great day!  We meet at 8:00 a.m. in the rotunda.

Also, please contact your state representative and schedule an appointment to meet with them on this day to promote our profession and our bill (we won't have a bill number until it's filed)

Find your rep here: http://www.house.mo.gov/  (use the representative look up on the right hand side of the page, you will need your 9 digit zip code)

Hope to see you there!!

We had a great time and talked to a lot of people when many of the State Assembly members and officers attended MHA at Tan Tar A Resort in Osage Beach, Missouri.

This is a chance for us to network and speak about our efforts to get a bill passed for the State of Missouri that would require hospitals to hire CERTIFIED Surgical Technologists. 

Normally we have a speaker at this event as well but that was cancelled due to our doctor having other obligations and having to cancel with little notice.  We apologize for any inconvenience this caused to anyone. 

We had a wonderful fall meeting in Cape Girardeau, Missouri!

The topics and speakers were really great and the State Assembly would like to thank Karen Rudert, CST and her planning team for all of their hard work on this event.

We would also like to thank all of the vendors and reps who contributed to this event and Southeast Missouri Hospitals for their contributions.

See you all in March at St. Louis Community College for our State Convention!

We will be having our Fall Meeting on September 25th, 2010 at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  It will have 7 CE credits available!

The registration brochure will be mailed out to members very soon and we will be posting a printable registration form on the Education/Registration Forms page of our website.

Hope to see everyone there!

We just returned from Springfield, MO. and this year's convention was better then ever!  We had some really great speakers and everyone who attended had a great time and learned a lot. Thank you to those who helped to make this convention so great!  If you weren't able to join us, we hope you will come to the upcoming fall meeting which is set to take place on September 25th in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  Location and agenda to be announced.

Student Day
We had our annual student day on Friday March 5th and many students showed up to participate.  The first half of the day, the students rotated through 10 different stations.  This gave everyone a chance to experience hands on learning with different reps.
Later, we held our scrub bowl and here are the results.

1st Place - Ozarks Technical College

2nd Place - Rolla Technical Center

3rd Place - St. Louis Community College

Thanks for participating!!

The poster contest was also held and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place all went to students from Rolla Technical Center.  Congratulations and job well done!

The MO State Assembly also awarded two scholarships on Friday for $250.00 each. 
Scholarship winners were:

Melissa White - Rolla Technical Center
Kevin Shatwell - Ozarks Technical College

Results from the Election
We did hold elections at this convention for the positions of Secretary and two Board of Directors.  The results were as follows:

Secretary - Tammy Pearson, CST

Board of Directors - J'Anna Hightower, CST/CFA and Bonnie Eggerman, CST/CFA

All of the above were currently serving and their terms have now been extended for two more years.  Thanks for all that you do for our State Assembly!