How to become accredited as a surgical assistant!

How to become accredited as a surgical assistant!

One of the first steps towards private surgical assisting, is getting yourself accredited at the private hospitals around town that you want to work at. Unfortunatley, given that the majority of these hospitals are privately owned, this often requires filling out some paperwork at each hospital. The good news is that once you have done it once, you no longer need to re-do it.

Step one is to find out which private hospitals are in your area and which of these perform the surgeries that you are interested in assisting for. If you are friendly with some of the consultant surgeons on your unit, then asking them which hospitals they work at will be a good starting point.

Step two involves a simple google search of the hospital. This will find you a contact number or email address to get in touch with the hospital administration. If you plan to write an email to them requesting surgical assisting accreditation, then use something along the lines of: “Hi, I am a local doctor keen on gaining surgical assisting rights at your hospital. Would you please be able to provide me with the necessary paperwork, or point me in the right direction?”.

You will find that it does not take long until your inbox is full of forms to fill out, but remember, you only have to do this once, and then your off and racing! While each private hospital will have slightly different form requirements, the majority of them are similar in nature. You will of course, need to provide your personal details. You will need to demonstrate proof of full medical registration. You are only able to get this once you have completed your internship. You will need to be able to show proof of medical indemnity insurance for surgical assisting. The good news is that this is very cheap (usually less than $100 per year) and is often included on your basic indemnity insurance cover that you already have, so please take a look. And finally, you often need to include 1-2 character references. It is worth while calling or emailing your references as a heads up that you are using them for this purpose, so they can be on the lookout for an email.

Usually this whole process is complete within a few days, and you can start your surgical assisting career. Of course, once you become accredited at new hospital, please let OpAlert know via your app, so that you open your doors to receiving more notifications for private surgical assisting lists!