1. "Practice of surgical technology" means performing tasks in preparation for surgery and providing care in collaboration with a team of providers of health care and other persons to a patient before, during and after surgery. The term includes, without limitation:
(a) Working with a registered nurse to carry out a plan to care for the patient and prepare the operating room for surgery;
(b) Preparing and gathering sterile supplies, instruments and equipment necessary for a surgical procedure;
(c) Ensuring that surgical equipment is functioning properly and safely; and
(d) In the operating room under the direction of an appropriate provider of health care:
(1) Ensuring that the area in which the surgery is conducted remains sterile;
(2) Anticipating and responding to the needs of the surgeon and other members of the team during surgery;
(3) Passing supplies, instruments and equipment to other members of the team;
(4) Sponging or suctioning the operative site of the patient;
(5) Preparing and cutting materials for sutures;
(6) Transferring and irrigating with fluids;
(7) Transferring drugs to other members of the team;
(8) Handling specimens;
(9) Holding retractors and other instruments and equipment;
(10) Applying electrocautery to clamps on blood vessels cut during surgery;
(11) Connecting drains and catheters to suction or drainage apparatus;
(12) Applying skin staples and dressings to closed wounds;
(13) Counting sponges, needles and other supplies and instruments; and
(14) Removing instruments after the completion of surgery.
2. The term does not include administering a drug to a patient.
(Added to NRS by 2017, 330)