Principles and Practices of Surgical Technology Laboratory introduces surgical instrumentation in a hands-on setting: identification, classification, selection, passing, proper care, and handling of instruments, equipment, and supplies. It also covers the processing side — proper care, disinfection, assembly, and sterilization following surgical procedures, and operating room decontamination — and includes practical experience in a hospital Sterile Processing Department.
Within the SCNS taxonomy, STS is the Surgical Technology prefix, and the L suffix denotes a laboratory course. Daytona State publishes it at 2 credits with STS1307 as a corequisite, offered in fall with a $390.00 lab fee. It appears at approximately four Florida institutions, and it is a prerequisite for STS1304L.
The pairing of instrumentation with sterile processing is the point. A surgical technologist is the person who knows the instruments — what each is called, what it does, how it is handed, how it comes apart, and how it must be cleaned and reassembled. That knowledge is what makes a scrub useful, and the processing half is where a large share of surgical technologists actually begin their careers.
The practical warning students most need. The same instrument is a Kelly in one hospital and a Rochester in another; a Metzenbaum is a "Metz"; a retractor may be known entirely by a surgeon's preferred nickname. Regional and institutional naming variation is genuine and is not resolved by a textbook.
Two consequences. Learn what the instrument does and what it is used on — that knowledge transfers, while a name may not. And learn the surgeon's preference card at each site, which is the operative document rather than the textbook: it records what that surgeon wants, called what that surgeon calls it. A new technologist who studies preference cards before a case is doing the single most useful preparation available.
The processing half of this course carries a compliance point with real weight. Every reusable medical device has manufacturer instructions for use (IFU) specifying how it must be cleaned, disassembled, packaged, and sterilized, and those instructions are what a facility is held to. Deviating from them — using a shorter cycle, skipping disassembly, substituting a method — is a compliance failure and a patient-safety risk, regardless of how long the department has done it that way.
Three related points. Complex devices with lumens and hinges are where failures concentrate, because cleaning is difficult and inadequate cleaning defeats sterilization entirely — an instrument that is not clean cannot be sterilized, which is the most important single fact in sterile processing. Loaner instrumentation arriving from a vendor for a specific case is a recognized high-risk category, because it arrives late, its IFU may be unfamiliar, and there is pressure to rush it. And endoscope reprocessing has its own documented failure history and its own detailed requirements.
Worth stating positively rather than as a fallback. Many students enter surgical technology wanting to scrub and find, in this course, that they are drawn to the processing side — the systems, the standards, the problem-solving, and the pace.
Sterile processing is a distinct profession with its own credentials (CRCST, CIS, CHL and above through HSPA), its own management track, and genuine demand. It is also less physically punishing than scrubbing, has more predictable hours in many facilities, and is a route into infection prevention and quality roles. A student who discovers an aptitude here should take it seriously rather than treating it as second choice.
Practical safety content that students in a laboratory course sometimes discount. The decontamination area handles instruments contaminated with blood and tissue, and it uses chemicals that are hazardous in their own right.
Daytona State publishes STS1327L at 2 credits with a $390.00 lab fee, corequisite STS1307, offered in fall. The 60 contact hours given here follows the laboratory convention of roughly two contact hours per credit hour per week and is a derived value — confirm on your syllabus.
Assessment combines instrument identification testing — typically timed, with instruments presented for naming — and practical check-offs on handling, assembly, and processing. The Sterile Processing Department experience is the most valuable component and is where the classroom content becomes real; treat it as professional practice, because the department staff are also evaluating you, and they hire.
Florida has no licensure requirement for surgical technologists, which makes the credential decisive: 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). Verify accreditation on the accreditor's own public list before enrolling — a graduate of a non-accredited program may be unable to sit the examination at all. Legislation to require certification has been introduced in various states over time; verify current Florida requirements rather than assuming.
Clinical placement requires Level 2 background screening under § 435.04, Florida Statutes, immunizations, drug screening, and CPR.
The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.
One caveat overrides the general rule: 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. Note also that surgical technology is offered in Florida both as college credit and as a PSAV clock-hour program; the two are not interchangeable and PSAV coursework does not transfer as college credit.
Generated September 2, 2026 · Updated September 2, 2026