Clinical Case Requirements
Clinical case requirements are defined by the Association of Surgical Technologists in the Core Curriculum for Surgical Technology, 6th edition, and are as follows:
- Students must complete a minimum of 120 cases.
- A minimum of 20 of these cases must be performed in the First Scrub (FS) role.
- The remaining 10 cases may be performed in either the FS or Second Scrub (SS) role.
- Students are required to complete a minimum of 90 cases in various surgical specialties, excluding General Surgery.
- A minimum of 60 cases must be performed in the FS role and distributed amongst a minimum of four surgical specialties.
- A minimum of 10 cases in four different specialties must be completed in the FS role (40 cases total).
- The additional 20 cases in the FS role may be distributed amongst any one surgical specialty or multiple surgical specialties.
- The remaining 30 cases may be performed in any surgical specialty in either the FS or SS role.
- A minimum of 60 cases must be performed in the FS role and distributed amongst a minimum of four surgical specialties.
- Surgical specialties, excluding General Surgery, include the following:
- Cardiothoracic
- Genitourinary
- Neurologic
- Obstetric and gynecologic
- Ophthalmologic
- Oral/Maxillofacial
- Orthopedic
- Otorhinolaryngologic
- Peripheral vascular
- Plastics and reconstructive
- Procurement and transplant
- Diagnostic vs. operative endoscopy cases
- An endoscopy classified as a semi-critical procedure is considered a diagnostic case.
- An endoscopy classified as a critical procedure is considered an operative case.
- Diagnostic and operative cases will be counted according to specialty.
- Diagnostic cases are counted in the SS role up to a total of 10 of the required 120 cases.
- Vaginal delivery cases are counted in the SS role of the OB/GYN specialty, up to a total of five of the required 120.