Pharmacology for Surgical Technology

Course Description

Pharmacology for Surgical Technology covers fundamental pharmacological concepts and principles involved in managing patient care, including how to properly administer therapeutic medications, their indications and contraindications, and the effects medications have on body systems. Students explore drug classifications and their primary mechanisms of action, with emphasis on correctly identifying drugs and dosages, and special attention is given to medications that surgical technologists handle while working in the sterile field.

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 45 clock hours, with STS0003 as prerequisite and STS0120 as corequisite. ⚠ It carries no college credit.

The final clause of that description is the one that matters. Medications on the sterile field are handled by the surgical technologist — received, labelled, drawn up, and passed — and the field is where medication errors in surgery overwhelmingly occur, because drugs arrive in unlabelled basins and syringes that look identical. The labelling discipline taught here is not paperwork; it is the control that prevents a wrong-drug event inside a patient.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe fundamental pharmacological concepts and terminology.
• Describe drug classifications and their principal mechanisms of action.
• Describe routes of administration and their implications.
• Describe pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics at an applied level.
• Identify medications commonly used in surgical procedures.
• Describe indications and contraindications for commonly used surgical medications.
• Describe the effects of medications on major body systems.
• Describe adverse reactions, allergies, and anaphylaxis, and the required response.
• Perform dosage calculations accurately.
• Convert accurately between systems of measurement.
• Describe the surgical technologist's role and limits in medication handling.
• Receive medications onto the sterile field using correct verification procedure.
• Label all medications and solutions on the sterile field immediately and completely.
• Maintain a labelled, organised medication area on the back table.
• Confirm drug, dose, and concentration verbally with the circulator.
• Describe anaesthetic agents, both general and local, and their implications.
• Describe the surgical technologist's role during induction and emergence.
• Describe haemostatic agents and their correct preparation and use.
• Describe irrigation solutions, antibiotics, and contrast media used intraoperatively.
• Describe medications used in surgical emergencies.
• Describe controlled substances and the associated handling requirements.
• Document medications on the sterile field as required.
• Recognise and report medication errors and near misses.
• Apply patient allergy information to intraoperative medication handling.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe malignant hyperthermia and the response protocol.
• Describe blood products and transfusion considerations.
• Describe specialty-specific medication regimens.
• Describe drug interactions relevant to surgical patients.
• Describe medication reconciliation and its perioperative role.
• Prepare for the pharmacology content of the CST examination.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Pharmacological concepts and terminology
• Drug classifications and mechanisms
• Routes of administration
• Applied pharmacokinetics
• Medications used in surgery
• Indications and contraindications
• Effects on body systems
• Adverse reactions and anaphylaxis
• Dosage calculation
• Measurement conversion
• Role and limits in medication handling
• Receiving medications onto the field
• Labelling on the sterile field
• Organising the medication area
• Verbal verification with the circulator
• Anaesthetic agents
• Induction and emergence
• Haemostatic agents
• Irrigation, antibiotics, and contrast
• Emergency medications
• Controlled substances
• Documentation
• Error and near-miss reporting
• Allergy considerations

Optional Topics

• Malignant hyperthermia
• Blood products and transfusion
• Specialty medication regimens
• Drug interactions
• Medication reconciliation
• CST pharmacology 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

⚠⚠ Label everything on the field, immediately, every time

• Unlabelled medications on the sterile field are a leading cause of surgical medication error, and the reason is simple: a basin of clear fluid looks exactly like every other basin of clear fluid.
• Label the container and the syringe, at the moment you receive it — never "in a minute," never from memory afterwards.
• Include the drug name and the concentration, because concentration errors are as dangerous as wrong-drug errors and far easier to make.
• Verify aloud with the circulator as it is passed: name, strength, and expiry, read from the vial by the person holding it. Both people confirm.
• Keep the vial or ampoule in the room until the case ends, so anything can be checked.
• Announce the drug when passing to the surgeon, with the dose — not just "here."
• Discard anything unlabelled. An unidentified solution is waste, whatever it cost and however inconvenient.
• Know your role's limits. The surgical technologist handles medications on the field; the technologist does not prescribe, and does not administer to the patient outside that role — that boundary is set by law and facility policy.
• Report errors and near misses. A near miss reported is a system fixed; concealed, it is the next patient's injury.

⚠ Dosage calculation must be automatic, not effortful

• Get fast and accurate, then keep practising. Calculation in the operating room happens under time pressure with a surgeon waiting, which is the worst possible environment for arithmetic you find difficult.
• Learn one method and use it consistently — dimensional analysis is reliable and shows its own working.
• Check the decimal point twice. A tenfold error is the classic and the most dangerous.
• Sanity-check the answer. If a dose seems implausibly large or small, it probably is — stop and recheck rather than proceeding.
• Never guess a concentration, and never assume the usual one; percentages and ratios both appear, and they are not interchangeable.
• Ask when unsure. No one has ever been criticised for double-checking a dose; the alternative is unforgiving.

⚠⚠ 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.

⚠⚠ 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.

⚠ 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.

STS0008 is 45 clock hours, with STS0003 as prerequisite and STS0120 as corequisite. ⚠ Clock hours carry no college credit.

Expect a dosage-calculation competency with a high pass mark — commonly 90 percent or above, and frequently pass-or-repeat — because the error tolerance in practice is effectively zero.