Surgical Technologist Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons, registered nurses, or other surgical personnel. May help set up operating room, prepare and transport patients for surgery, adjust lights and equipment, pass instruments and other supplies to surgeons and surgeons' assistants, hold retractors, cut sutures, and help count sponges, needles, supplies, and instruments.
Surgical Technologist is Also Know as
In different settings, Surgical Technologist is titled as
- Certified Surgical Technician
- Certified Surgical Technologist (CST)
- Operating Room Surgical Technician (OR St)
- Operating Room Technician (OR Tech)
- Operating Room Technologist (OR Tech)
- Surgical Scrub Technician
- Surgical Scrub Technologist (Surgical Scrub Tech)
- Surgical Technician
- Surgical Technologist (Surgical Tech)
Education and Training of Surgical Technologist
Surgical Technologist is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Surgical Technologist
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Education Required for Surgical Technologist
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Degrees Related to Surgical Technologist
- Bachelor in Pathology/Pathologist Assistant
- Associate Degree Courses in Pathology/Pathologist Assistant
- Masters Degree Courses in Pathology/Pathologist Assistant
- Bachelor in Surgical Technology/Technologist
- Associate Degree Courses in Surgical Technology/Technologist
- Masters Degree Courses in Surgical Technology/Technologist
- Bachelor in Sterile Processing Technology/Technician
- Associate Degree Courses in Sterile Processing Technology/Technician
- Masters Degree Courses in Sterile Processing Technology/Technician
Training Required for Surgical Technologist
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Surgical Technologist in different industries are
- Surgical Assistants
- Cardiovascular Technologists and Technicians
- Medical Equipment Preparers
- Endoscopy Technicians
- Diagnostic Medical Sonographers
- Radiologic Technologists and Technicians
- Medical Assistants
- Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technicians
- Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
- Radiation Therapists
- Pediatric Surgeons
- Orthopedic Surgeons, Except Pediatric
- Anesthesiologist Assistants
- Neurodiagnostic Technologists
- Anesthesiologists
- Nurse Anesthetists
- Ophthalmic Medical Technologists
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Emergency Medical Technicians
- Veterinary Technologists and Technicians
What Do Surgical Technologist do?
- Count sponges, needles, and instruments before and after operation.
- Hand instruments and supplies to surgeons and surgeons' assistants, hold retractors and cut sutures, and perform other tasks as directed by surgeon during operation.
- Scrub arms and hands and assist the surgical team to scrub and put on gloves, masks, and surgical clothing.
- Provide technical assistance to surgeons, surgical nurses, or anesthesiologists.
- Wash and sterilize equipment, using germicides and sterilizers.
- Prepare, care for, and dispose of tissue specimens taken for laboratory analysis.
- Prepare dressings or bandages and apply or assist with their application following surgery.
- Operate, assemble, adjust, or monitor sterilizers, lights, suction machines, or diagnostic equipment to ensure proper operation.
- Monitor and continually assess operating room conditions, including patient and surgical team needs.
- Observe patients' vital signs to assess physical condition.
- Maintain supply of fluids, such as plasma, saline, blood, or glucose, for use during operations.
- Maintain files and records of surgical procedures.
- Maintain a proper sterile field during surgical procedures.
- Prepare patients for surgery, including positioning patients on the operating table and covering them with sterile surgical drapes to prevent exposure.
- Clean and restock operating room, gathering and placing equipment and supplies and arranging instruments according to instructions, such as a preference card.
- Order surgical supplies.
Qualities of Good Surgical Technologist
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
Tools Used by Surgical Technologist
- Adjustable height instrument tables
- Air driver drills
- Anesthesia machines
- Argon beam coagulators
- Autoclaves
- Autologous blood recovery systems
- Autotransfusion systems
- Blood/fluid warmers
- Carbon dioxide CO2 lasers
- Cardiac leg wedges
- Cardiovascular stents
- Cavitrons
- Cell savers
- Central venous catheters
- Chest drains
- Cholangiocath catheters
- Continuous suction machines
- Coronary bypass pumps
- Craniotome drills
- Cryo units
- Cryo-ophthalmic units
- Defibrillators
- Dermatome blades
- Dermatomes
- Desktop computers
- Digital electrosurgical units
- Digital Imaging Communications in Medicine DICOM diagnostic medical printers
- Doppler ultrasound equipment
- Electrocautery equipment
- Electronic blood pressure cuffs
- Electrosurgical grounding pads
- Electrosurgical monitors
- Electrosurgical units
- Endoscopic camera/video systems
- Endoscopic vein harvesting equipment
- Endoscopy equipment
- Ethylene oxide sterilizers
- Eye lasers
- Eye magnets
- Fiber optic luminators
- Flash autoclaves
- Fluoroscopy equipment
- Foot-operated suction units
- Fracture tables
- Graspers
- Hemorrhoidal circular staplers
- Hyper/hypothermia units
- Instrument positioning equipment
- Instrument tables
- Insufflators
- Internal mammary artery IMA retractors
- Intestinal stapling devices
- Intraluminal staplers
- Kleinert-Kutz elevators
- Lab specimen containers
- Laparoscopes
- Linear staplers
- Lithotripters
- Loupes
- Manual blood pressure units
- Master control units or manipulators
- Mayo stands
- Medical image database systems
- Medical imagining laser printers
- Microscopes
- Minidriver drills
- Motorized lift tables
- Needle holders
- Neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet Nd:YAG lasers
- Nerve stimulators
- Neurotome drills
- Notebook computers
- Ohio suction units
- Orthopedic arm boards with drains
- Orthopedic drills
- Personal computers
- Pneumatic tourniquets
- Portable suction units
- Positioning equipment
- Pulmonary resuscitators
- Remote manipulation robots
- Retractors
- Ring stands
- Robotic arms
- Robotic manipulators
- Scalpels
- Skin staplers
- Slow suction units
- Smoke evacuators
- Spark-gap electrosurgical units
- Sterad machines
- Steri-vac aeration cabinets
- Sternal saws
- Stretchers
- Suction machines
- Surgical aspirators
- Surgical clamps
- Surgical dilators
- Surgical dissectors
- Surgical drains
- Surgical drapes
- Surgical drills
- Surgical elevators
- Surgical forceps
- Surgical lasers
- Surgical navigation systems
- Surgical pneumatic drills
- Surgical probes
- Surgical retractors
- Surgical robotics equipment
- Surgical robots
- Surgical stapling equipment
- Surgical tubing or irrigation tubing
- Suture needles
- Suturing kits
- Suturing needle forceps
- Syringes
- Tablet computers
- Thermal cautery units
- Tourniquets
- Tracheostomy tubes
- Ultrasonic cleaners
- Vacuum extractors
- Venodynes
- Video cassette recorders VCR
- Voice activated surgical systems
- Warm air blankets
- Washer sanitizers
- Washer sterilizers
- Wheelchairs
- Wound drains
- X ray machines
Technology Skills required for Surgical Technologist
- Database software
- Electronic medical record EMR software
- Email software
- Google Drive
- Graphics software
- Internet browser software
- MEDITECH software
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Windows
- Microsoft Word
- Nursing documentation software
- Patient scheduling software
- Patient tracking software
- Supply documentation software
- Surgery workflow communication software
- Word processing software