Longtime MUSC Kershaw employee's 50-year career grew with the hospital

Before David Stratford finished high school, he had a career plan.

He would study auto mechanics at Midlands Technical College.

But as his high school graduation day approached, reality set in.

“My grandmother, who had raised me, told me she didn’t have the money for me to go to Tech.” 

Undaunted, Stratford went in another direction. The day after graduating from Camden High School, he drove to Kershaw Memorial Hospital and applied for a job in housekeeping.

“Cassie James, who worked in housekeeping, told me a young man like me didn’t belong in housekeeping,” Stratford said. “She took me to administration and told them I needed a job.”

Two weeks later, in June of 1975, Stratford was working in the hospital’s Surgical Services Department. 

And, as the saying goes, the rest is history – 50 years’ worth.

The young man who started out mopping floors, washing and wrapping surgical instruments and keeping the sink water clean just retired as MUSC Health Kershaw Medical Center’s central sterile processing manager. 

His legacy, however, will remain. The hospital recently placed a plaque in the cafeteria in his honor to recognize Stratford’s leadership of a campaign that raised more than $40,000 to renovate the kitchen and dining area.

No one is more surprised than Stratford by how quickly the time has passed. 

“The years crept up on me, but my time here has been good,” he said.

 

How good? As Stratford said, Kershaw Memorial didn’t just give him a job. It gave him opportunity. And it’s been the scene of some of his most memorable moments. It’s where he met his wife, Annette. His son, DeWayne, was born at the hospital. So were three of his six grandchildren.

As Stratford prepares to leave, he reminisces about the changes he’s witnessed.

“Each change was for the better,” he said. “The hospital has modernized and expanded physically and in numbers. When I started, some units had only five or six beds. We had two ORs; now we have five. We had two small autoclaves in sterile processing, and we washed some of the instruments by hand. Now everything is automatic, with chips and memory. I can troubleshoot every machine in sterile processing. That saves the hospital money.”

When he started, he had to lay out the surgical instruments, sometimes as many as 60, on the tray precisely and from memory. Now, each surgeon’s instrument preferences are accessible on a computer. 

And he remembers the first time he saw Annette, pushing a bed onto an elevator. “She was a student nurse, and I sure thought she was cute, so I asked her if I could get a date if I helped her push that bed. She said, ‘Yes.’ That was 43 years ago.”

 

While rising through the ranks, Stratford earned two sterile processing certifications and took on various assignments, including scrubbing as a surgical tech, helping to prepare patients for surgery and transporting them to the OR. Stratford also served for three years as president of the Healthcare Sterile Processing Association’s South Carolina chapter.

“Whatever I was asked to do, I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything I could to see that the patients who came through those doors got the best care that we could provide,” he said. 

For pediatric patients, he would fill the rubber gloves with water and draw happy faces on them. He recalls the time when a young woman who was scheduled for surgery refused to go until he obliged and came to the hospital. He stayed until she woke up and told him he could go home.

“She still calls me her guardian angel,” he said.

Stratford said he never dreamed he would fall in love with the medical field, having at one point seriously considered pursuing that auto mechanic career. But after some soul-searching, he reordered his priorities.

“I realized this is where I needed to be,” he said. “I didn’t come for the money. I loved what I was doing. It is a ministry.” 

He is acutely aware that he would not be where he is without the support of colleagues, and he pays homage to all who believed in him. 

“The support and respect that I got from the doctors and the people I worked under have gotten me to where I am today. And I feel comfortable that I am leaving everything in place. We make sure our instruments are handled properly, and that the machines are in top working order. We don’t cut corners; we don’t add, and we don’t take away. I’ve truly been blessed with a wonderful staff and supervisor.” 

But, he said, it’s time to close this chapter. 

And what’s next? Stratford said he’s going to take it easy for a while and devote more time to his full-time pastoral duties at High Hill Baptist Church in Lugoff.

And his parting advice? “Always have a positive attitude. My goal is to thank the Lord for getting me up every day.”