Introduction to Surgical Technology

Course Description

Introduction to Surgical Technology is an introduction to the medical, legal, ethical and psychological aspects of health care during surgical intervention, covering aseptic techniques employed to guard against disease and infection, with methods to combat them.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, STS is the Surgical Technology prefix, and the 0000-level number marks this as PSAV clock-hour instruction. Daytona State publishes it at 60.9 clock hours, offered fall, with BSC0070 and HSC1531 as prerequisites and STS0155 as a corequisite. ⚠ It carries no college credit — see the note below.

This is the course where the profession's central idea is established. Asepsis is not a procedure you perform; it is a state you maintain and continuously verify, and the accompanying professional value — surgical conscience — is what the rest of the programme is built on. A student who leaves this course understanding only the techniques, and not the obligation, has missed the point of it.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the role and scope of practice of the surgical technologist.
• Describe the composition of the surgical team and each member's responsibilities.
• Distinguish the scrub role from the circulating role.
• Describe the physical layout and traffic patterns of the surgical suite.
• Describe the principles of asepsis and sterile technique.
• Identify the boundaries of the sterile field.
• Describe the events that constitute a break in sterile technique.
• Apply the principle of surgical conscience and describe its obligations.
• Describe the chain of infection and how surgical practice interrupts it.
• Describe microorganisms of surgical significance and their transmission.
• Describe methods of disinfection and sterilisation and their appropriate uses.
• Describe sterilisation monitoring, including chemical and biological indicators.
• Perform the surgical hand scrub, gowning, and gloving.
• Apply standard precautions and personal protective equipment correctly.
• Describe the legal doctrines relevant to surgical practice, including negligence and consent.
• Describe informed consent and the surgical technologist's role in relation to it.
• Apply HIPAA requirements to the operating room environment.
• Describe documentation requirements and their legal significance.
• Describe professional ethics and the AST Code of Ethics.
• Describe the psychological needs of the surgical patient and their family.
• Communicate appropriately with patients, families, and team members.
• Describe cultural, religious, and age-related considerations in surgical care.
• Describe patient rights and advocacy in the perioperative setting.
• Describe the surgical technologist's role in patient safety initiatives.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe the history and development of surgical technology as a profession.
• Describe accreditation and certification structures in the field.
• Describe quality improvement and risk management in surgical services.
• Describe emergency and disaster preparedness in the surgical suite.
• Describe the economics of surgical services and cost containment.
• Begin structured preparation for the CST examination.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Role and scope of the surgical technologist
• Surgical team composition
• Scrub versus circulating roles
• Surgical suite layout and traffic patterns
• Principles of asepsis
• Boundaries of the sterile field
• Breaks in sterile technique
• Surgical conscience
• Chain of infection
• Microorganisms of surgical significance
• Disinfection and sterilisation methods
• Sterilisation monitoring
• Hand scrub, gowning, and gloving
• Standard precautions and PPE
• Legal doctrines and negligence
• Informed consent
• HIPAA in the operating room
• Documentation
• Professional ethics
• Psychological needs of the surgical patient
• Communication
• Cultural and age-related considerations
• Patient rights and advocacy
• Patient safety initiatives

Optional Topics

• History of the profession
• Accreditation and certification structures
• Quality improvement and risk management
• Emergency and disaster preparedness
• Economics of surgical services
• CST examination preparation

Resources & Tools

• Surgical Technology for the Surgical Technologist: A Positive Care Approach (AST) — the core text, and the one the CST examination is built around.
• Alexander's Care of the Patient in Surgery — the comprehensive perioperative reference.
• Berry & Kohn's Operating Room Technique — the standard on technique and sterile practice.
• Surgical Instrumentation (Rutherford) — instrument identification, which is largely a memorisation task and needs a good picture reference.
• AST — Association of Surgical Technologists (ast.org) — the professional body; student membership is inexpensive and includes practice materials.
• NBSTSA (nbstsa.org) — free CST examination content outline and eligibility rules; read the eligibility page before you enrol anywhere.
• ARC/STSA (arcstsa.org) and CAAHEP (caahep.org) — free accreditation lookup; verify your programme.
• AORN (aorn.org) — perioperative nursing body whose Guidelines for Perioperative Practice are the standard the whole room works to.
• Flashcards for instruments, and a study partner — unglamorous and the single most effective study method in this programme.
• Anatomy atlas or app — surgical anatomy is approached by region and approach, not by system, and a visual reference helps.
• Your programme's mock operating room and open lab time — gowning, gloving, and draping are motor skills built only by repetition.

Career Pathways

• Surgical technologist — SOC 29-2055.
• Hospital operating rooms — the largest employer, and where most graduates begin.
• Ambulatory surgery centres — a large and growing Florida sector, frequently with better hours than hospital work.
• Specialty services — cardiovascular, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, and transplant; specialisation raises pay significantly.
• Labour and delivery — caesarean section teams.
• Physician offices and specialty clinics performing procedures.
• Central sterile processing — a related pathway with its own certification.
• Travel surgical technologist — substantially higher pay for mobility, once experienced.
• Surgical first assistant — an advanced role requiring further education and separate credentialing (CSFA); the usual route to higher earnings in this field.
• Medical device and instrument sales or clinical support — companies recruit experienced surgical technologists specifically for operating room credibility.
• Programme instruction — teaching in a surgical technology programme after several years in practice.
• ⚠ Progression to nursing, physician assistant, or other licensed roles requires separate degree programmes, and PSAV clock hours generally do not transfer into them — plan the pathway deliberately if that is the goal.

Special Information

⚠⚠ This is a PSAV clock-hour course — it carries no college credit

• The leading zero in the course number is the signal. Under the Florida Statewide Course Numbering System, a 0000-level number denotes postsecondary adult vocational (PSAV) instruction, which is measured in clock hours rather than semester credit hours. These courses carry zero college credit.
• ⚠ A catalog may display the clock-hour figure under a heading that reads "credit hours." It is not credits. When you see a number like 192 or 375 attached to a 0000-level course, that is hours of instruction — no course is worth 375 semester credits.
• PSAV hours do not transfer as college credit to an associate or bachelor's degree, and they do not satisfy general education requirements.
• What they do produce is a workforce credential — a career certificate that qualifies you to sit a national certification examination and to be hired. For many students that is exactly the right outcome, and it is reached faster and more cheaply than a degree.
• Some institutions offer articulation from a PSAV certificate into a related associate degree, sometimes through an articulated credit agreement or a "gold standard" statewide articulation. ⚠ These are institution-specific and change. If your intention is to continue to a degree later, get the articulation in writing from the receiving institution before you enrol, not after you finish.
• Financial aid rules differ for clock-hour programmes. Eligibility, disbursement, and satisfactory-progress rules are not the same as for credit programmes — ask the financial aid office specifically about clock-hour programmes.
• Attendance is the currency. Clock-hour programmes track attendance directly, and hours missed generally must be made up; this is stricter than a typical credit course.

The Daytona State surgical technology PSAV sequence

These ten 0000-level courses form one career certificate programme, taken as a cohort across three terms. The clock-hour figures are the catalog's own:

BSC0070 and HSC1531 are additional prerequisites outside the STS prefix, so the full programme is longer than the figure above. ⚠ Florida PSAV programmes are defined by state curriculum frameworks that specify a total programme length; confirm the current total and the exact course list with the programme rather than deriving it from a course guide.

The clinical courses dominate the programme — 723 of the 1,224.9 STS-prefix hours, nearly three fifths, are spent in an operating room. That is the shape of this credential, and it is why the placement requirements below deserve early attention.

⚠⚠ Surgical conscience: if you break sterility and nobody saw, you say so

• This is the defining professional value of surgical technology, and it is taught from the first day because everything else rests on it.
• Sterility is absolute, not probabilistic. An item is sterile or it is not; there is no "probably fine." When in doubt, it is contaminated.
• You will contaminate something, and the only question is what you do next. Announcing your own break in technique — when no one else noticed and no one would ever know — is the whole of surgical conscience, and it is the single trait that defines a trustworthy surgical technologist.
• The consequence of staying silent is a surgical site infection in a real person. That is not an abstraction; it is prolonged illness, reoperation, and sometimes death.
• Know the boundaries of the sterile field — table height, gown front from chest to sterile-field level and sleeves from cuff up, and never turn your back on the field.
• Monitor everyone. Watching for other people's breaks in technique is part of the role, and saying so out loud is expected of you, not presumptuous.
• Movement discipline matters — sterile to sterile, non-sterile to non-sterile, face the field, and keep hands above waist and below shoulders.
• Verify every package. Integrity, indicators, expiry, and moisture — a wet package is a contaminated package.
• Speaking up is a clinical skill, and programmes assess it. A student who will not say "that's contaminated" to a surgeon is not yet safe to practise.

⚠⚠ Certification and accreditation — verify before you enrol

• The recognised credential is the CST — Certified Surgical Technologist, awarded by the National Board of Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting (NBSTSA).
• ⚠⚠ Eligibility to sit the CST examination generally requires graduation from a programme accredited by CAAHEP (through the ARC/STSA) or ABHES. Confirm a programme's accreditation before enrolling — this is the same trap as CAPTE for physical therapist assistants, and it is unrecoverable after the fact.
• Accredited programmes require a documented minimum number of surgical cases before graduation, commonly cited as 120, distributed across specialties and roles. Keep your case log meticulously and from the first day — reconstructing it later is difficult and sometimes impossible.
• Most employers require certification even where the law does not, and many require it within a set period after hire.
• Certification is maintained by continuing education or re-examination on a defined cycle.
• ⚠ State regulation of surgical technologists varies and has changed in several states. Florida has not historically licensed surgical technologists as a separate licensed profession in the way it licenses nurses or physical therapist assistants, but requirements set by statute, by facility, and by accreditor do change.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies. Verify current certification, accreditation, and any state requirements directly with NBSTSA, the accreditor, and the Florida Department of Health rather than relying on any course guide, including this one.
• Background screening and drug testing are required for clinical placement, and a criminal record can end a career pathway before it starts — raise any concern with the programme early and privately.

⚠ Clinical placement requirements — sort these out early

• Health clearance and immunisations are required before you may enter a clinical facility — typically hepatitis B, MMR, varicella, tetanus, an annual influenza vaccination, and tuberculosis screening.
• Level 2 background screening and drug testing are standard for Florida health care placements, and a facility may refuse a student it declines to screen.
• Current BLS certification is normally required, from a provider the programme accepts.
• You travel to the affiliate, and placements are assigned rather than chosen. Transport is your responsibility, and a Florida clinical affiliate can be a substantial drive.
• Clinical hours are unpaid and follow the operating room's schedule, not a class timetable — expect early starts, full days, and occasional late finishes when a case runs long.
• Plan employment and childcare around the rotation, not the other way round. This is the single most common reason students struggle in the clinical terms.
• Professional behaviour is assessed continuously, and a facility may remove a student for conduct without a right of appeal to the college.
• You are a guest and a learner, not staff. Work within your role, ask when unsure, and never exceed what you have been checked off to do.
• HIPAA applies fully. No phones in the operating room, no photographs, and no discussion of cases outside the clinical team — a social media post about a case ends placements and careers.

⚠ The physical and psychological demands are real

• You stand still for hours. Long cases mean sustained standing in one position, frequently with arms elevated, and it is more fatiguing than moving work. Supportive footwear and compression stockings are a genuine professional investment.
• You lift. Instrument trays are heavy, and patient positioning and transfers are part of the job — use the equipment and the team.
• Operating rooms are cold, and you will be gowned and gloved for hours without the ability to adjust anything.
• Bathroom and meal breaks are constrained by the case, which surprises students more than anything else. Hydrate and eat before a long list, sensibly.
• Radiation exposure occurs when imaging is used intraoperatively — wear lead, use distance, and monitor with a dosimeter where provided.
• Latex and chemical sensitivities matter here; disclose them to the programme early.
• You will see trauma, and some cases end badly. Paediatric cases and unexpected deaths affect experienced staff, and it is normal to be affected. Know what support the programme and the facility provide, and use it.
• The culture can be blunt under pressure. Sharp instruction during a critical moment is about the case, not about you — but genuine abuse is not acceptable, and there is a route to report it.

STS0003 is 60.9 clock hours — use the exact catalog figure of 60.9 for any programme hour-counting; the whole-number value shown elsewhere in this repository is a rounded display. Offered fall, with BSC0070 and HSC1531 as prerequisites and STS0155 as a corequisite.

⚠ Daytona State also offers a separate college-credit surgical technology sequence in which STS1302 carries the near-identical title "Introduction to Surgical Technology." They are different courses at different levels — see the note in this repository's STS1302C guide, and confirm which programme you are enrolled in.