Perioperative Patient Care Concepts introduces the surgical patient's needs across the perioperative period, with emphasis on the special-needs patient care concept — adult, pediatric, geriatric, and bariatric patients, each of whom presents distinct positioning, thermoregulation, airway, and safety considerations. The course covers types of consent, patient transportation and transfer, preoperative routines, surgical positioning, safety practices, and end-of-life care concepts.
Within the SCNS taxonomy, STS is the Surgical Technology prefix. STS1308 sits in the didactic core of the associate-degree or certificate surgical technology program, taken alongside the first surgical procedures course — Daytona State pairs it as a corequisite with STS1323 — and before the clinical rotations. It appears at approximately five Florida institutions.
Its subject is what surrounds the operation rather than the operation itself, and that framing is deliberate. A surgical technologist's technical work is instrumentation and sterile technique; the patient care content is what makes that work safe. An anaesthetised patient cannot report pain, cannot adjust a limb that has been left in a damaging position, cannot say they are cold, and cannot object to anything. Everything protecting them is procedural, and this course is where those procedures are learned.
Daytona State publishes this course as STS1308 with corequisite STS1323 — neither carrying a C suffix. Florida course inventories carry the corequisite as STS1323C, the integrated lecture-and-laboratory form, and this repository's published STS guides are largely C-suffixed: STS1302C, STS1307C, STS2324C, STS2365C.
SCNS equivalency does not cross numbers, and the suffix is part of the number. Institutions that use the C-suffixed form integrate a laboratory and carry correspondingly more contact hours; institutions using the unsuffixed form teach the lecture separately. When comparing programs or evaluating transfer, read the credit value and the catalog description rather than matching on the three-letter prefix and the number alone.
An anaesthetised patient has no protective reflexes. They cannot feel a limb going numb, cannot shift off a pressure point, and cannot tell anyone that something hurts. Every protection is procedural, and the injuries that result from getting it wrong are serious and often permanent:
The professional habit is simple and worth building now: everyone in the room owns positioning. A surgical technologist who notices an unpadded elbow or an over-abducted arm and says so is doing the job correctly, regardless of who positioned the patient. Speaking up about a positioning concern is never out of place.
Operating room fires still occur, and the mechanism is consistent: an oxygen-enriched atmosphere under the drapes, an ignition source (electrosurgery pencil, laser, fiberoptic light cable), and a fuel — most often alcohol-based skin prep that was not allowed to dry fully, or drapes, or the patient's own hair.
Highest-risk procedures are those above the xiphoid with supplemental oxygen — head, neck, and airway surgery. The controls are unglamorous and effective: allow prep to dry completely and do not let it pool beneath the patient, keep the electrosurgical pencil in its holster when not in use, communicate before activating an ignition source near oxygen, and know where the saline on the field is. The surgical technologist controls two of the three legs of that triangle directly.
Malignant hyperthermia is a rare, inherited, life-threatening reaction to volatile anaesthetic agents and succinylcholine. It kills quickly if untreated and is highly survivable if treated immediately. The surgical technologist is not the person who diagnoses or treats it, but is often part of the response, and speed depends on everyone in the room knowing where the MH cart and the dantrolene are before the crisis rather than during it. The MHAUS protocol is posted in most operating suites and is free online. This is a small piece of content with an outsized consequence.
A retained surgical item is a never event — an error considered wholly preventable — and it is reportable, litigable, and career-affecting. The count is the primary defense, and the failure modes are well documented: counts performed while distracted, counts not repeated at closing, items added to the field without being counted, and — the one students most need to internalise — a discrepancy resolved by assuming rather than by searching and imaging.
The correct professional response to a count discrepancy is to stop, state it clearly, and follow the institution's protocol through to resolution, including radiographic confirmation where indicated. Social pressure in the room runs the other way, particularly late in a long case. Holding the line is exactly what the role exists for.
Florida has no state licensure or registration requirement for surgical technologists. There is no state practice act, and Florida law does not require certification to work in the role — hospitals set their own hiring standards. Legislation to require certification has been introduced in various states over the years; verify current Florida requirements rather than assuming, as this can change.
The practical consequences are the same as in sonography. The credential is the credential. Most Florida hospitals and surgery centers require or strongly prefer the NBSTSA Certified Surgical Technologist (CST), and CST eligibility requires graduation from a program accredited by ARC/STSA through CAAHEP (or ABHES). A student who completes a non-accredited program may be unable to sit the examination at all — verify accreditation on the accreditor's own public list, not on the school's website, and check for probationary status. Clinical placement additionally requires Level 2 background screening under § 435.04, Florida Statutes, immunisations, drug screening, and BLS.
STS1308 carries 3 credits at Daytona State, offered in spring, with prerequisite STS1303 and corequisite STS1323. The 45 contact hours reported here reflects a standard three-credit lecture course; note that the C-suffixed courses in this same prefix run higher — this repository carries STS1307C at 3 credits and 60 hours because of its integrated laboratory. Where an institution offers this content in an integrated form, expect more hours.
Assessment is typically examination- and case-based, with positioning and safety content often reinforced in the paired laboratory or procedures course. The end-of-life and special-populations content warrants a note: it touches death, pediatric surgery, and organ procurement, and students who have personal history with these subjects should know that in advance and are entitled to ask about support resources.
How Florida course levels affect transfer: the first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. 1000- and 2000-level courses transfer transparently between Florida public institutions; the boundary that matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.
In practice, surgical technology programs are accredited, lock-step cohorts with sequenced clinical placements, and they accept transfer into the professional sequence rarely and only case by case. Expect to repeat coursework when moving between programs. Students should also note that surgical technology is offered in Florida both as a college-credit A.S. or certificate and, at some institutions, as a PSAV clock-hour program — the two are not interchangeable, and PSAV coursework does not transfer as college credit. Confirm which one you are enrolling in.
Generated September 2, 2026 · Updated September 2, 2026