[MUSIC]
I'm self-motivated.
I'm determined.
Once I have my mind focused nothing can distract me.
I'm open to learning new things.
Willing to listen to anybody who has common sense.
I think being self-motivated helps me at my job
because I'm gonna keep working to perfect whatever I'm doing.
Like, if you give me a mission, I'm gonna work as hard as I can
to accomplish that, and I wanna do whatever I'm doing better
than anybody else has done before me.
[MUSIC]
I started here at Hopkins when I was 19.
I was a year removed from high school.
I started out in environmental services.
I worked there for five and
a half years before moving on to become a surgical tech in the OR
and I've been scrubbing now for nine years.
[MUSIC]
I remember in the beginning when I first started I used to go
home at night and study everything.
I wanted to perfect my craft.
I wanted to make sure that I was not the weak link
during the surgery.
So I would study as soon as I left the building.
I would read my textbooks and
go online and look at the procedures.
>> Coming to the operating room,
doing some of the intense where very delicate operations that we
do in neurosurgery, that makes it easy.
>> He knows his job, I know my job.
When I come to the operating room in the morning, I see that
Ed's gonna be in my room, I just relax and I can focus.
>> Working with each other every day and doing the cases,
same cases over and over for
the past nine years I can pretty much anticipate every step that
he's going to take during this procedure.
>> He trained here.
He knows the Hopkins system, it's familial, it's a family for
him, it's easy.
>> I started working here when I was 19,
now I'll be 34 at the 25th of May.
So I pretty much have grown up here.
I have a long standing relationship with a lot of
the doctors around here because I met them early in their
training and now I watch them graduate.
So it's like watching a child grow up.
This position has opened up a lot of doors for me.
I've seen a lot and I've done a lot.
And I'm actually the one from my neighborhood who actually
made it out.
So like all of my friends, they took a different route.
So whenever we see each other, they hold me with high praise.
It's like I'm the golden child,
I'm the only who actually made it out of the neighborhood.
There are some good opportunities here.
It's up to the individuals to take advantage of them.
Hopkins is what you make it.
If you come in, and you have limited education,
they got diploma programs.
Then, if you wanna go to college, and enter some program,
you can move forward with that after that.
It's like you will both benefit from that.
Like they get another person at this position and you get a job.
So it's like you're partners.
It's very rewarding to go home and know that you helped
save a life or you helped make a child's situation better.
And this is every day, I don't take it for granted at all.
[MUSIC]
And I didn't know nothing about this when I was in environmental
services.
I was gonna make this work no matter what it was.
I could not pass up that opportunity.
My name is Edward McCann, Jr.
I'm a surgical technician here at Johns Hopkins.
I promise that you will get my undivided attention.
There will be no distractions.
I promise you the best health care when I'm in the room.
[MUSIC]