Final ER episode signals new role for Steris — curator

MENTOR, Ohio — The final episode of NBC’s medical drama ER this evening may signal the end of an era in television production and writing.

But it also highlights an informal role for Steris Corp. in Mentor, Ohio — keeper of operating room memorabilia.

In 1997 and 1998, members of the Steris project design team lent their technical expertise to the creators of ER, who wanted to design an authentic emergency room set, said Stephen Norton, the company’s director of corporate communications.

Steris also provided a lot of its equipment — stretchers, operating room tables and surgical lights — to the set of the television show that came to define the modern medical drama.

Now, Steris folks are trying to get a couple of their famous stretchers back. “We may display one stretcher, along with in-use scene photos featuring the cast, in our Mentor headquarters,” Norton wrote in an email.

“We’re considering offering the other stretcher to the Smithsonian for its pop-culture collection,” Norton said.

The showroom of operating-room equipment already at Steris has a museum-like quality. There, you can see a portable operating-room table that could have been dropped from a World War II biplane. It was made by Steris subsidiary, Amsco International Inc., which the Mentor company acquired in 1996.

You also can see the company’s latest and greatest technologies for today’s operating rooms.

Though it’s being retired from the ER set, Steris’ equipment still can be seen on the set of Grey’s Anatomy, the medical drama on rival network ABC.

“And we’re now in technical discussions with notable producer Jerry Bruckheimer to outfit the set of a soon-to-be-produced pilot for a new medical drama under consideration by NBC,” Norton said.