(ABC 6 News) — The Surgical Technology program of Rochester Community and Technical College hosted a ceremony for their 50th anniversary on Wednesday at the Heintz Center, where students of the program get the chance to do hands-on training before entering the operating room.

“They’re setting up cases like they would in the O.R., and acting like they have the patient and kind of walking all the way through the procedure,” Jodie Finstuen, instructor and alum of the program, said.

Students have been learning to prepare operating rooms, sterilize equipment and help surgeons during operations for five decades at RCTC.

In recent years, the program has seen 100% of their students be placed into jobs a year after they graduate, and the hands-on nature of the program helps prepare them for real life scenarios in the O.R.

“Honestly, the cases we do here in Rochester are s complex, so just seeing where they’re at when they’re graduating, they’re just really ready to take on almost any case,” Dena Alberts, surgical technician and program alum, said.

While roles and responsibilities of a surgery technician have evolved, the state does not require surgery technicians to be certified when working in an operating room — which is something the leader of RCTC’s surgical technology program, Eileen Zirbel, hopes to see change.

“To cover all that material and make sure that they’re adequately prepared to be entry-level employees, you really need that two-year window to get all of that information,” Zirbel said.

Zirbel said there was not much of a pay adjustment when the program went from a certification to an associates degree, so she hopes to see that when SEIU finishes bargaining negotiations with Mayo Clinic.

“The only way you’re going to actually recruit students to the field is to make it a return on investment,” Zirbel said.

Mayo Clinic and SEIU are scheduled to have their next bargaining session on Thursday. The union is pushing for higher pay, an increase in staffing and decrease of overtime hours to reduce burnout.