SPECIAL HONORS: Surgical Assistant
Marlon Minor is the “go-to” surgical assistant at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital. (Photo by Jay Paul)
An abdominal aortic aneurysm, a ballooning of the central blood vessel serving the body’s core, can go undetected for years. But when it blows, it is a life-threatening emergency.
It’s the most challenging situation that surgical assistant Marlon Minor says he’s ever had to face.
“When I first assisted on [an aneurysm] that rolled through, I thought, ‘Wow! What a case to put these skills to test,’ ” he says. “It was time to see if I was ready to be the assistant that I had trained so hard to become.
“The patient was so sick that I thought they weren’t going to make it. I said to myself, ‘Not today! This can’t happen to me right now.’ That experience put my skills to [the] test on all levels as well as my stress tolerance on working under pressure.”
Minor, a 34-year-old certified surgical assistant at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, knew he wanted to help people since he was 16 and felt helpless at the loss of a sister who died in a car crash.
“Have you ever wondered how you could help someone if you knew what to do? This is what happened to me,” he says. “Even though I was young when the accident occurred, my drive continues to thrive, knowing that I am trained to help people in many areas.”
He first became a surgical technologist and then a surgical assistant in his native Tennessee. While working at a facility in Nashville as an independent assistant, he met Eugene Park, a surgeon with Henrico Doctors’ Hospital. That led Minor and his family to a job in Richmond two and a half years ago.
As a surgical assistant, he helps a surgeon from preoperative through postoperative duties. Minor is passionate about his field. “I love my job. It’s not something that everybody can do. It’s my calling,” he says. “Being a surgical assistant has given me an opportunity that I thought I would never have gotten... in such a highly skilled profession.”
Surgeon Ralph Layman of Richmond Surgical Group says Minor is the “go-to” surgical assistant at Doctors’ Hospital. “When Marlon is scrubbing into a case, I feel I and the patient are well-supported and I am able to focus my energies toward other areas,” he said in his nomination of Minor for the Special Honor.
Surgeon Rick Carter, who also nominated Minor, agrees: “Great assistant, great person, excellent at his job.”
The feeling is mutual for Minor. “Every day I help a surgeon operate, I feel privileged that a stranger put their trust in us to take care of them,” he says. “Providing a service to someone you don’t even know and putting all you have into caring for that person makes me feel honored.”
