Phase II of Meridian’s SFA Online Program consists of the following:
The second phase of the SFA Online Program is the Applied Science Lab, which is 60 hours in length, consisting of five 10-hour days on campus with 10 hours of coursework online. All labs take place in our state-of-the-art animal laboratory facility at Meridian Institute Of Surgical Assisting in Nashville, Tennessee. Labs run from Monday through Friday, and are scheduled multiple times each month.
This lab is a very intense but extremely rewarding week. All procedures are done on anesthetized pigs, affording the benefit of understanding how to handle real tissue, and deal with real bleeding and actual surgical emergencies.
There was a time when this type of training was reserved only for physicians. Meridian has brought top-level physician training to the surgical first assistant. We are the only distance education program in the country to offer this top-quality and highly effective training.
In keeping with Meridian’s philosophy, we believe that the only real way to become a quality assistant is to take part in real training. It is very difficult to train on rubberized pieces and parts, and then move forward to perform those same skills on surgical patients. We feel that Meridian’s prime responsibility to the students (and, ultimately, to the patients) is to be certain that our students graduate with proper experience in dealing with real and living tissue.