Lifespan Youth

• Prepare the operating room by selecting and opening supplies.
  
  
• Assemble, adjust, check and maintain non-sterile equipment to ensure that it remains in proper working order.
  
  
• Assist in preparing patients for surgery by providing physical and emotional support.
  
  
• Check charts and observe vital signs.
  
  
• Properly position the patient on the operating room table.
  
  
• Assist in connecting and applying surgical equipment and/or monitoring devices.
  
  
• Prepare the incision site by cleaning, shaving and disinfecting the skin.
  
  
• Assist the physician with gowning and gloving as well as the application of sterile drapes that isolate the operative site.
  
  
• Operate sterilizers, lights, suction machines, electrosurgical units and diagnostic equipment.
  
  
• Hold retractors or instruments.
  
  
• Sponge or suction the operative site.
  
  
• Be the sterile member of the surgical team who passes instruments, sutures and sponges, needles and instruments before, during and after surgery.
  
  
• Participate jointly in counting sponges, needles and instruments before, during and after surgery.
  
  
• Prepare and apply sterile dressings following surgical procedure.
  
  
• Assist in application of non-sterile dressings, including plaster or synthetic casting materials.

• New England Institute of Technology
  18-month associate degree program
  
  
• Bunker Hill Community College
  associate degree program
  

• Association of Surgical Technologists
  http://www.ast.org

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