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Surgical Technologist

51.09 Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions · SOC 29-2055

Surgical technologists build and defend the sterile field in an operating theatre — setting up instruments and equipment, scrubbing in with the surgical team, passing instruments through the case, and counting every sponge and needle before the patient is closed. ⚠ A median of $64,650, usually reached through a certificate rather than a degree. ⚠⚠⚠ And this is the one health credential on this site that FLORIDA DOES NOT REGULATE — no licence, no board, no state gate — which makes checking your programme's accreditation entirely your job. Several commercial sites say otherwise; they are wrong, and this page shows why.

Licensure and accreditation
⚠⚠⚠ Florida does NOT license or register surgical technologists. There is no board, no state examination and no state credential. Chapter 468 of the Florida Statutes, which regulates most allied-health professions, runs to Part XVI and contains no part for surgical technology. ⚠⚠ A 2022 bill, SB 1828, would have created Part XVII — Surgical Technology and Central Service Technician Services — and set employment conditions including an accredited programme and national certification. It DIED IN THE SENATE HEALTH POLICY COMMITTEE on 14 March 2022 and never became law. ⚠ Several commercial career-advice sites state as current fact that Florida requires certification within twelve months of graduation. That describes the bill, not the law. ⚠⚠ What binds instead is the EMPLOYER: hospitals and ambulatory surgery centres set their own credentialing, and the industry standard is the Certified Surgical Technologist (CST) awarded by the NBSTSA, which requires graduation from a programme accredited by CAAHEP or ABHES. Because there is no state gate, a non-accredited programme will not be caught by anyone but you — verify the accreditation directly with the accreditor before you pay a deposit.

What the work actually is

O*NET, on surgical technologists: maintain a proper sterile field during surgical procedures; count sponges, needles, and instruments before and after operation; hand instruments and supplies to surgeons and surgeons' assistants, hold retractors and cut sutures; scrub arms and hands and assist the surgical team to scrub and put on gloves, masks, and surgical clothing; wash and sterilize equipment, using germicides and sterilizers.

⚠ The count is not administrative detail — it is the job. A retained sponge or needle is a never-event, and the technologist is the person whose count stands between the patient and one. So is the sterile field: you are the member of the team whose whole attention is on whether it has been broken.

⚠⚠ You also have to know the case. A good scrub has the next instrument in the surgeon's hand before it is asked for, which means knowing the steps of the procedure and where this one has got to. That is why the programmes are organised around surgical specialties rather than around subjects.

Projected need and wages

✅ O*NET and the BLS agree closely here.

⚠ And there is a level above it worth knowing about from the start. The BLS reports surgical assistants — also called surgical first assistants, who make incisions, place clamps and close — at a $66,800 median. It is a further credential rather than a promotion you drift into, and it is the obvious progression for a technologist who wants more of the operation.

⚠⚠⚠ Florida does not regulate this job, and the internet will tell you it does

Every other health path on this site ends at a state licence. This one does not. Florida has no board of surgical technology, no state examination and no registration. Chapter 468 of the Florida Statutes — speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, radiological personnel, respiratory therapy, athletic trainers, and a dozen more — runs to Part XVI and stops. There is no part for surgical technology.

⚠⚠ A bill would have changed that and did not pass. SB 1828 of 2022, Surgical Technology and Central Service Technician Services, would have created Part XVII and set conditions on who a health care facility could employ. Its last action reads “3/14/2022 Senate — Died in Health Policy”.

⚠⚠⚠ Several commercial “how to become a surgical tech in Florida” sites state, as current law, that you must obtain national certification within twelve months of graduating. That is a description of the failed bill. It is not the law, and you should not plan around it — nor should you assume the state is checking anything on your behalf.

⚠⚠ So the accreditation check is entirely yours

In respiratory therapy, paramedicine or dental hygiene, a programme that is not accredited cannot get its graduates licensed, so the state effectively polices programme quality. Here there is no such backstop. What employers ask for is the CST from the NBSTSA, and eligibility for that examination runs through a programme accredited by CAAHEP or ABHES.

⚠ Ask the programme for its accreditor and its programme number, then check it on the accreditor's own site rather than the college's. Ask also for the CST first-attempt pass rate. Accredited programmes report it; a programme that will not give you a number is telling you something.

⚠⚠ Two delivery routes, and only one builds toward a degree

As in emergency medical services, Florida runs the same training two ways and does not flag the difference at enrolment:

RouteShapeWhat you get
College credit — STS 1302 and the 2000-level coursesa certificate or an associate degree✅ credit that counts toward a degree later
⚠ PSAV clock hours — STS 0010, 0011, 0012about 1,030 hours in three occupational completion pointsa certificate carrying no college credit

⚠ Ten institutions carry each of the three clock-hour courses, so this is not a fringe route — it is how much of the state teaches the subject, and it is usually faster and cheaper. It is a perfectly good way into the operating theatre. It is a poor way in if you may later want an associate degree, a bachelor's, or the nursing route, because none of those hours transfer.

⚠⚠ And there is a shorter exit worth knowing about: STS 0015 Central Supply Technician, about 210 clock hours, at 10 institutions. Sterile processing is the department that decontaminates, inspects and sterilises every instrument set the theatre uses. It is a real job in its own right, it is a common way to see the environment before committing to the full programme, and it is the credential the failed 2022 bill would also have covered.

⚠ The numbers do not travel well

Florida carries 96 surgical technology course numbers across 27 public institutions, and the most widely shared reaches only 11 — the introductory course. Almost half the numbers are carried by a single college. The same subject appears as Surgical Procedures I, Surgical Specialties & Procedures I and Surgical Technique & Procedures, under STS 1323, STS 2323, STS 2323C and STS 1177C.

⚠⚠ Treat these programmes as one-college packages. Take general education and the sciences wherever suits you; take the surgical sequence in one place, and expect to repeat rather than transfer if you move mid-programme.

Necessary skills

Advice

⚠⚠ Verify CAAHEP or ABHES accreditation yourself, with the accreditor. On every other health path the state would catch an unaccredited programme for you. Here nothing does, which makes this the single most consequential five minutes of your research.

⚠ Decide the credit question before you enrol, not after. If there is any chance of a degree later — and the route to perioperative nursing or to surgical first assisting usually needs one — take the college-credit route even though the clock-hour one is quicker.

⚠ Consider central sterile processing first if you are unsure. Around 210 hours, ten institutions, and it puts you inside the department that supplies the theatre. It is much cheaper than discovering in month six that you cannot stand the room.

And ask to observe a full case before you commit. Not a video — a real list, start to finish. The work is remarkable and it is not for everyone, and four hours in a corner of a theatre will tell you which you are.

Programs that lead here

A program is a field of study, one level above a degree — each page says which degrees it covers and which Florida institutions award them. ⚠ The count is institutions that awarded a credential in the field in 2023; it is not a promise that a school runs this exact degree, and it counts something different from the course-based list further down.

Surgical Technology 25 Florida schools
The programme itself — 25 Florida public institutions, mostly certificates, with technical colleges carrying a large share. ⚠ Read its degrees note before enrolling: the clock-hour route is about 1,030 hours and carries no college credit, and there is no state licence to catch an unaccredited programme.

Related, but not a route in

Programs worth knowing about if you are considering this career — ⚠ they do not lead to it. Each row says what it is and is not.

Nursing 78 Florida schools
⚠ Not a route from here — the surgical technology credential gives no advanced standing, and you would start a nursing programme from the beginning. Named because a perioperative RN is the level above you in the same room, with assessment, charge and management roles that are closed to a technologist, and because it is the move many technologists eventually make.
Emergency Medical Services 39 Florida schools
⚠ Not a route here. Named as the closest structural comparison: another certificate-first acute-care credential taught heavily at technical colleges, at similar pay. ⚠⚠ The difference is environment rather than difficulty — EMS is unscheduled and outdoors, this is a scheduled list in one controlled room.

Careers similar to this one

Careers filed under the same broad field in the federal classification (HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS) — often they share early coursework, and each row says which group it is filed in. ⚠ Worth reading BEFORE you commit: switching between neighbours is cheap early and expensive late.

Athletic Trainer Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions
⚠⚠⚠ A master's-entry, state-licensed clinical profession paying $62,520 — less than a licensed practical nurse earns on a certificate ($64,400), and less than every associate-degree clinical route on this site except paramedic. ⚠⚠ The profession moved to master's entry in 2022: CAATE states that after the fall 2022 term, baccalaureate degree programmes will no longer enrol students. ⚠ Florida's statute has not caught up and still reads as though a bachelor's is enough.
Dental Hygienist Dental Support Services and Allied Professions
Dental hygienists are licensed clinicians who assess and treat the gums, remove calculus and stains, take and read radiographs, apply preventive agents, and teach patients to look after their own teeth. ⚠ A median of $98,100 on a two-year associate degree — the highest of any two-year route on this site. ⚠⚠ Florida licenses the work under Chapter 466 and requires THREE separate examinations on top of the degree. ⚠⚠⚠ Admission is the hard part, not the coursework: 18 public programmes in the whole state, all limited-access.
Diagnostic Medical Sonographer Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions
Sonographers produce and interpret the ultrasound images physicians diagnose from — deciding in real time which views answer the clinical question, and recognising the difference between healthy and pathological tissue on a screen nobody else is watching. ⚠ A median of $96,590 on a two-year degree, second only to dental hygiene among the two-year routes on this site. ⚠⚠⚠ And a regulatory fact worth knowing before you enrol: Florida does NOT license sonographers, because the statute is written about radiation rather than about imaging.
Health Care Administrator Health and Medical Administrative Services
Running the non-clinical half of health care — budgets, staffing, quality, compliance, revenue, regulators. $123,860 median, 616,200 employed, 62,100 openings a year, growing much faster than average. ⚠⚠ There is no required major: Census microdata puts HEALTH first at 169,319 people, BUSINESS second at 75,396 and PSYCHOLOGY third at 47,154. ⚠⚠⚠ But Florida statute puts a price on the choice — on the nursing home side, a health administration major halves the required training programme from 2,000 hours to 1,000.
Health Information Technician, Coder and Medical Office Administrator Health and Medical Administrative Services
⚠⚠⚠ Three different routes wear this name in Florida, they are taught at roughly the same number of institutions, and only ONE of them leads to the field's professional credential. Health information management — 31 institutions, and the associate degree is what makes you RHIT-eligible. Billing and coding — 37 institutions and the largest output, all clock-hour certificates, none of which does. Medical office administration — 36 institutions into an occupation of 850,000 people with no credential ladder at all. ⚠⚠ Choosing wrongly does not waste a term; it forecloses the credential.
Licensed Practical Nurse Practical Nursing, Vocational Nursing and Nursing Assistants
LPNs give direct nursing care under an RN or physician — medications, wounds, vital signs, assessment — and supervise aides. ⚠ It is the widest-taught credential on this site (48 Florida institutions, 1,322 completions a year), a median of $64,400, and the one field where Florida law publishes each programme's licence-examination pass rate before you enrol. Look it up.
Medical Assistant and Pharmacy Technician Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services
Two of the largest short-certificate routes into health care in Florida, paying within $60 a year of each other and taught at the same technical colleges — and the state treats them completely differently. ⚠⚠⚠ Florida writes down in statute exactly what a medical assistant may do, including venipuncture and administering medication, and requires NO licence, certificate or training to do it. It requires a pharmacy technician, working behind a counter, to register with the Board of Pharmacy and complete a board-approved programme. ⚠⚠ And the medical assisting programme has FOUR labelled exit points you can leave on and be hired at — the pharmacy technician programme has none.
Medical Laboratory Scientist Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions
Medical laboratory scientists produce the results a diagnosis is made from — haematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology, immunology and the blood bank — and catch the result that is wrong before a physician acts on it. ⚠⚠ Florida is one of the few states that LICENSES this work: you may not report a clinical laboratory result here without a licence. ⚠⚠⚠ Read the wage section before you commit: this is a four-year degree paying less than three of the two-year health paths on this site, and that trade-off is the honest centre of this page.
Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Practice Nurse Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing
⚠⚠⚠ Florida grants nurse practitioners autonomous practice — and almost every account of it omits the limit that matters. Autonomous registration covers PRIMARY CARE ONLY. It does not let you practise your specialty without a physician protocol, and only certified midwives are excepted. 11,201 APRNs were registered for autonomous practice as of the 2024 legislative analysis. ⚠⚠ The occupation itself is nearly twice the size of the physician assistant profession — 320,400 employed, 29,500 openings a year, $132,300 median.
Occupational Therapy Assistant Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services
Occupational therapy assistants deliver the treatment that gets people back to doing ordinary things — dressing, cooking, writing, working, playing — after injury, stroke, developmental delay or mental illness. ⚠ A median of $72,300 on a two-year degree, growing 21%. ⚠⚠⚠ And the finding worth acting on: it pays MORE and grows FASTER than the physical therapist assistant, and Florida trains a QUARTER as many. Four institutions, 57 graduates a year. This page covers the assistant, the aide and the therapist.
Paramedic Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions
Paramedics are the highest level of prehospital care — assessing and stabilising at the scene, administering drugs, managing advanced airways, reading ECGs and running a cardiac arrest before the patient reaches a hospital. ⚠ Median $60,600, reached through a certificate rather than a degree, and stacked on top of a short EMT course most people complete first. ⚠⚠ In Florida this is substantially a FIRE SERVICE credential: departments pay for it and pay extra for holding it. ⚠⚠⚠ And the accreditation rule here is the strictest on this site — the wrong programme leaves you unable to certify at all.
Pharmacist Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Administration
⚠⚠ One route: the Doctor of Pharmacy, awarded in Florida's public system by UF, FAMU and USF (about 412 a year). ⚠⚠ Admission turns on two or more years of prerequisite science, not a bachelor's degree: UF's minimum is an associate degree, and more than half of Pharm.D. applications nationally come from people without a bachelor's. Median pay is $140,910 nationally and $135,970 in Florida. BLS expects retail demand to be limited as prescriptions move online and by mail.

See every career in HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS →

Courses along this path

Selected, not exhaustive — the courses specific to this path plus the foundations it is built on. A course number does not identify a course in Florida: always check your own institution's catalog and take a syllabus to an adviser.

BSC2085 —Anatomy and Physiology I Guide
Anatomy and Physiology I — 20 institutions. Required with a grade of C or higher, and the course that makes the anatomy of a procedure legible rather than memorised.
⚠ ⚠ Two equivalent packagings: 20 institutions split it into BSC2085 plus BSC2085L, and 7 carry the combined BSC2085C. Where it is split, take both halves in the same term.
BSC2085L —Anatomy and Physiology I Laboratory Guide
Anatomy and Physiology I Laboratory — 19 institutions, the corequisite half.
BSC2086 —Anatomy & Physiology II Guide
Anatomy and Physiology II — 19 institutions. Required alongside the first half by the associate-degree route, unlike several other health programmes on this site that name only one.
⚠ ⚠ Also carried as the combined BSC2086C at 7 institutions.
BSC2086L —Anatomy and Physiology II Lab Guide
Anatomy and Physiology II Laboratory — 19 institutions.
MCB2010 —Microbiology Guide
Microbiology — 16 institutions. The science behind the sterile field: what you are excluding, how it gets in, and why the sterilisation parameters are what they are.
⚠ ⚠ Required with a grade of C or higher at Indian River, and paired with MCB2010L (15 institutions).
MCB2010L —Microbiology Lab Guide
Microbiology Laboratory — 15 institutions, the corequisite half, where aseptic technique is practised rather than described.
HSC2531 —Medical Terminology Request a guide
Medical Terminology — 8 institutions. Required outright, and the language every preference card, instrument name and operative note is written in.
⚠ ⚠ Florida numbers this subject twice: HSC2531 at 8 institutions and HSC1531 at 16. Indian River's surgical technology A.S. names HSC2531 specifically — take the one your own catalogue lists.
PSY2012 —General Psychology Guide
Introduction to Psychology — 33 institutions. Required by the associate-degree route, and more useful than it sounds in a room that runs on hierarchy, stress and communication under time pressure.
ENC1101 —English Composition I Guide
English Composition I — 39 institutions, in the general-education core of the associate-degree route.
STS1302 —Introduction to Surgical Technology Request a guide
Introduction to Surgical Technology — 11 institutions, the most widely carried course in the prefix. The role, the sterile field, aseptic technique, theatre layout and the legal and ethical framework.
⚠ ⚠ Also carried as STS1302C, STS1302L and STS1303 Fundamentals of Surgical Technology at other colleges. This prefix names the same subjects differently at nearly every institution.
STS1307 —Surgical Equipment and Instrumentation Request a guide
Operating Room Technique I, Instrumentation — 5 institutions. Identifying, handling, assembling and caring for instrument sets, which is the craft the job is built on.
⚠ ⚠ Also taught as STS1304L Operating Room Technique II and STS1327L Principles and Practices of Surgical Technology Laboratory at other colleges.
STS1308 —Perioperative Patient Care Concepts Guide
Perioperative Patient Care Concepts — 5 institutions. Positioning, skin preparation, draping, catheterisation and monitoring: what happens to the patient before the first incision.
STS1340 —Pharmacology and Anesthesia Request a guide
Pharmacology and Anesthesia — 6 institutions. Medications on the sterile field, their labelling and handling, and what the anaesthetist is doing at the head of the table.
⚠ ⚠ Also carried as STS1340C at 5 institutions, titled Surgical Science and Pharmacology at some colleges. ⚠⚠ Drug handling on the field is a common source of error and is examined closely.
STS2323 —Surgical Procedures I Request a guide
Surgical Procedures I — 6 institutions. The specialty-by-specialty core: general, obstetric and gynaecological, genitourinary and ear, nose and throat procedures, step by step.
⚠ ⚠⚠ The same subject appears as STS1323, STS2323, STS2323C, STS2323L and STS1177C across the state. ⚠ Check which your college uses before comparing programmes or planning a transfer.
STS2324 —Surgical Procedures II Request a guide
Surgical Procedures II — 10 institutions, the second most widely carried course. Orthopaedic, cardiothoracic, vascular, neurological and ophthalmic procedures.
⚠ ⚠ Also carried as STS2324L and STS2324C. ⚠⚠ This is where the specialties that pay best later are introduced — cardiothoracic and neurosurgery scrub roles are the usual route to a higher wage.
STS2365 —Professional Skills for the or Team Request a guide
Professional Skills for the Operating Room Team — 7 institutions. Team roles, communication protocols, the surgical safety checklist and the counting procedure as a formal process.
STS2944 —Surgical Clinical I Request a guide
Surgical Clinical I — 7 institutions. The first supervised placement, scrubbing cases in a hospital theatre under a preceptor.
⚠ ⚠⚠ A clinical course: full theatre shifts on the hospital's schedule, commonly starting before seven in the morning, at whichever facility your college has an affiliation with. Expect background screening, immunisations, TB screening, drug screening and current BLS to be complete BEFORE the first day.
STS2945 —Surgical Clinical II Request a guide
Surgical Clinical II — 7 institutions, the terminal placement. Its case log is what an employer asks for, and what the CST examination assumes you have scrubbed.
⚠ ⚠⚠ Keep the case log. Accredited programmes set a minimum number of cases by specialty and role, and it is the only record of what you actually did — the transcript line will not say.
STS0010 —Surgical Technologist 1 Request a guide
Surgical Technologist, first occupational completion point — 10 institutions, 343 clock hours. The PSAV route, and how much of Florida actually teaches this subject.
⚠ ⚠⚠⚠ Measured in CLOCK HOURS and carrying NO college credit. With STS0011 and STS0012 it runs to about 1,030 hours and reaches the same CST examination as the credit route. ⚠ It is faster and cheaper and a legitimate way in — but none of it transfers if you later want a degree, and nobody points that out at enrolment.
STS0015 —Central Supply Technician Request a guide
Central Supply Technician — 10 institutions, 210 clock hours. Sterile processing: decontamination, inspection, assembly and sterilisation of every instrument set the theatre uses.
⚠ ⚠ A separate and much shorter credential, and a good way to see the environment before committing to the full programme. ⚠⚠ It is also a real destination — central sterile departments hire and promote — and it was the other occupation the failed 2022 bill would have covered.

Where you can take these courses in Florida

49 Florida public institutions teach courses on this path. The count is how many of the 20 listed courses each one carries — it shows where the path is best covered. It is not a statement that a school offers this as a degree; for that, check the institution’s own programme list.

CF
College of Central Florida
 17 of 20
MDC
Miami Dade College
 14 of 20
TSC
Tallahassee State College
 13 of 20
HC
Hillsborough College
 12 of 20
SFC
Santa FE College
 12 of 20
PBSC
Palm Beach State College
 11 of 20
SPC
St. Petersburg College
 11 of 20
IRSC
Indian River State College
 10 of 20
PHSC
Pasco-Hernando State College
 10 of 20
FGC
Florida Gateway College
 9 of 20
GCSC
Gulf Coast State College
 9 of 20
PESC
Pensacola State College
 9 of 20
SCFMS
State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota
 9 of 20
BC
Broward College
 8 of 20
DSC
Daytona State College
 8 of 20
SJRSC
St. Johns River State College
 8 of 20
FAMU
Florida A & M University
 6 of 20
FIU
Florida International University
 6 of 20
FSCJ
Florida State College at Jacksonville
 6 of 20
FSU
Florida State University
 6 of 20
SFSC
South Florida State College
 6 of 20
USF
University of South Florida
 6 of 20
FAU
Florida Atlantic University
 5 of 20
EFSC
Eastern Florida State College
 4 of 20
CFK
The College of the Florida Keys
 4 of 20
UNF
University of North Florida
 4 of 20
UWF
University of West Florida
 4 of 20
FLPOLY
Florida Polytechnic University
 3 of 20
ETC
Erwin Technical College
 2 of 20
FGCU
Florida Gulf Coast University
 2 of 20
FSWSC
Florida Southwestern State College
 2 of 20
LSSC
Lake-Sumter State College
 2 of 20
LHTEC
Lindsey Hopkins Technical College
 2 of 20
LWTC
Lorenzo Walker Technical College
 2 of 20
MTI
Manatee Technical College
 2 of 20
NCF
New College of Florida
 2 of 20
NFC
North Florida College
 2 of 20
NWFSC
Northwest Florida State College
 2 of 20
OTCMC
Orange Technical College-Main Campus
 2 of 20
PTCSP
Pinellas Technical College-St Petersburg
 2 of 20
PSC
Polk State College
 2 of 20
SHTC
Riveroak Technical College
 2 of 20
SSCF
Seminole State College of Florida
 2 of 20
STC
Sheridan Technical College
 2 of 20
SCTI
Suncoast Technical College
 2 of 20
MTCC
Traviss Technical College
 2 of 20
UCF
University of Central Florida
 2 of 20
UF
University of Florida
 2 of 20
VC
Valencia College
 2 of 20

Sources

Requirements change. These are the authorities that decide them — check them directly before committing to a route.

Last updated 23 September 2026.