Meet Curtis Davis of Central Sterile Processing

We continue our TidalHealth series, “Grow With Us,” with our April 2025 profile of Curtis Davis.

Curtis has been with this team for over a decade now and has remained in a very specialized unit where he has worked his way from a tech all the way up to managing the teams at both TidalHealth Nanticoke and TidalHealth Peninsula Regional.

You may not know a lot about what they do (you’ll soon find out), but this team is essential to every surgical procedure that happens at our hospitals.

Monthly, we’ll introduce you to team members, like Curtis, who began their career at TidalHealth and advanced in the health system and beyond, and/or who have taken their careers to the next level with significant certifications and achievements.

Here’s Curtis’s “grow” story!

Thanks, Curtis. We appreciate the opportunity to learn more about you and your career at TidalHealth. Let’s start with the personal “get to know you” stuff like where you grew up, where you went to school, family, friends… things you like to do when you’re not on the clock.
Honestly, I am a simple guy. I have lived in the area my whole life. Graduated from Parkside High School in 1998. I take a motorcycle ride now and then. When I am not working, I have only one real focus: Christmas lights. It’s a hobby that I started six years ago. I spend about 7 months of the year in Christmas mode. I set up my entire yard with decorations that has a perfectly planned pathway designed to get up close and personal. I have been on the local news and in the newspaper. Who knew you had a local celebrity right here!

Let me be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas 2025! I’ve seen your yard/display and it’s spectacular! We’ll circle back closer to Christmas and follow up with you. For now, I’m curious: What brought you to TidalHealth in 2014, and where did you start out?
I was the manager of a pizza shop in Salisbury. The current manager, who was a routine customer each Friday night, noticed my work ethic and commented on how I managed the employees for each order to keep everything in sync. One Friday night, I expressed interest in a career change as they picked up their large cheese pizza and medium birch beer. 6 months later, I started out as a standby in Central Sterile Processing. I worked my main job of 55 hours a week, then worked 20 hours a week here. During those hours, I spent time learning the processes and workflows of the department. I was fascinated and intrigued to think this could become a career. After three months passed, a full-time position became available and that was the beginning.

As we said in the introduction, you work in an area, Central Sterile Processing, that a lot of our team members might not know about. Tell us what your team does.
Central Sterile Processing reprocesses surgical instruments for the OR and numerous other departments in-house or at ambulatory locations within TidalHealth. We prepare, assemble, clean, inspect, and sterilize all the instruments and laboratory equipment used in medical exams, surgeries, and other clinical procedures. Technicians also restock intubation boxes, code carts, and other exchange bins used in the facility.

In healthcare, there is no margin for error anywhere, really, but in what your team does, you absolutely need to be at the top of your game every day, right? How focused must everyone be?
The department must always be alert and ready. We touch thousands of instruments each day. Each part of our process must adhere to strict protocols and standards to protect our teammates and the patient. We also must take the manufacturer’s recommendations into effect when cleaning and sterilizing instruments.

And, how do you know what instrument sets you’re going to need to put together for the next day’s surgeries?
The department's goal is that everything should be reprocessed by 7 a.m. the next day. This ensures that every instrument in inventory is at the OR’s disposal.

You’ve stayed with that team from the start and are now managing both operations at the Salisbury and Seaford hospitals. What is it that appeals most to you about this career?
The most appealing part of this position and my career is that we are truly the last line of defense for the patient. We are not on the frontlines, but we are in the background each and every day, providing safe medical equipment for all of the departments we support within the organization.

How do you work your way from a tech to a manager?
The plan was never to be at this level, honestly. I enjoyed being in the trenches working each night. I had great support from leadership through this process. Having the instinct of being a leader was already in place from my previous jobs. When I worked overnight, I would step in as a temporary shift lead when the opportunities arose. I would take charge and ensure the goal was finished. Then, I shifted to lead at TidalHealth Nanticoke as we began to merge. I implemented the same processes and workflows to mirror what was already in place in Salisbury. A restructuring of the manager position created the overseeing of both facilities.

What I really love about your team is that it’s so much more than just cleaning surgical instruments. You’re tracking them, you're constantly revising procedures and efficiencies… you’re really like a team of scientists for the surgeons.
This is true. We have 13 different service lines in the OR. Each of those services has different specialty instruments that must be handled, cleaned, inspected, and sterilized.

Darryl West suggested we profile you and called you a “visionary” for the way you are taking Central Processing to bigger and better things. What drives you to make your team and your department better every day?
The 32 people who work with me motivate me. We all understand that we must provide world class care for each patient that walks into a TidalHealth location.

Do you have any idea of how many instruments you process at each hospital each week?
We average approximately 3,200 a week.

That’s gotta be a huge task tracking all those surgical trays and instruments and keeping up on inventory needs. How do your teams manage to stay on top of that?
We use a computer tracking system that provides each instrument tray with a unique barcode. When a tech scans this barcode, we can trace each set through each part of our process. As the tech scans the barcode at the assembly station, it will provide a list of all the items that belong in the set. There are manufacturer names, reference numbers, descriptions, and quantities required in each tray. This is much better than using paper and pen, which was the standard process years ago.

Surgeries save lives, every day, and there are no successful surgeries at TidalHealth without the successful prep work of Central Processing. Do you think your crew understands just how important they are to this healthcare team?
I believe they do. Everyone at TidalHealth has a role that affects each patient directly or indirectly. Central Processing, though it’s a hidden treasure, touches so many offices, departments, staff, and patients every day. Without these two teams at both hospitals, a lot could not happen.

I would also think you need to stay extremely current on the latest surgical trends, too, because as surgeries change, equipment changes, and I’m guessing that also has an impact on the way your job gets done.
Absolutely. Medicine changes all the time, and it seems the less invasive the procedure, the more complex the instruments become.

Can you ever see yourself working anywhere else?
I honestly enjoy my job and career at TidalHealth. I love the profession and the impact we have on so many people, even operating in the background. I was given a chance twelve years ago to get where I am today, and I have no regrets.

Get you out on this one Curtis… you are truly a ‘hard work pays off” kind of guy success story. What advice would you like to offer others?
Yes, hard work does pay off, but you also must pay your dues. Doors open and doors close, just like they did for me…and quite unexpectedly… working at the pizza shop. I have applied for other positions within the department and was not chosen at that time, but I stayed the course and pushed harder with only one thought in mind: the patient. I never believed in twelve years I would be in this position. My dedication speaks for itself. Having great leadership that believed in me said it all. They know that it doesn’t matter the time of day — if the phone rings, I am there!