Surgical Assistants
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations- O*NET-SOC code
- 29-9093.00
Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons. May, in accordance with state laws, help surgeons to make incisions and close surgical sites, manipulate or remove tissues, implant surgical devices or drains, suction the surgical site, place catheters, clamp or cauterize vessels or tissue, and apply dressings to surgical site.
AI exposure
- Data source: BLSPublished: 2026-08
Low· relative
LowFour relative bandsVery highGroup-level value
Scale, basis and source
Four relative bands (Low / Moderate / High / Very high)
831 detailed occupations in the BLS Employment Projections table. Assigned per National Employment Matrix (NEM) code, so occupations sharing a NEM code carry the same band
- Data source: AnthropicPublished: 2026-03
0.000
0.000Range of values carried here0.745Scale, basis and source
Observed exposure index, 0–1 as published
Mapped onto O*NET tasks
Published per SOC 2018 occupation; every O*NET occupation with the same SOC 2018 code carries this value
- Data source: ILOPublished: 2025
0.19–0.30· 3 ISCO-08 groups
Scale, basis and source
Generative AI exposure index, 0–1 as published
Published per ISCO-08 unit group. Linked to this occupation, wholly or in part, by applying U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics crosswalks (ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC, 2010 SOC to 2018 SOC) as published
What kind of figure this source publishes
The BLS category is a relative rank, not an absolute level, and it is not a first-hand measurement: it groups an occupation's percentile ranks across several published studies into four bands. It is not an employment or wage forecast, not a probability of adoption, and it does not separate automation from augmentation.
ILO value for each linked ISCO-08 group
- ISCO-08 3222Midwifery Associate Professionals0.20
- ISCO-08 3230Traditional and Complementary Medicine Associate Professionals0.19
- ISCO-08 3259Health Associate Professionals Not Elsewhere Classified0.30
AI exposure (OpenAI rubric)
28 rated tasks · 2 tasks with β ≥ 0.5 (7.1%)
β = direct exposure (E1) + 0.5 × exposure when tools are available (E2), per the source repository's definition.
- Source unit: O*NET 27.2 tasks → O*NET 31.0 occupation code
- All rated tasks are in the O*NET 31.0 task list.
- Source
- OpenAI "GPTs are GPTs" exposure rubric
- Release
- gh-main-0471612
- License
- MIT License, Copyright (c) 2024 OpenAI
Tasks
Task statements from the O*NET® 31.0 Database, core tasks first.
| Task | Type | β (OpenAI) |
|---|---|---|
| Adjust and maintain operating room temperature, humidity, or lighting, according to surgeon's specifications. | Core | 0 |
| Apply sutures, staples, clips, or other materials to close skin, facia, or subcutaneous wound layers. | Core | 0 |
| Assess skin integrity or other body conditions upon completion of the procedure to determine if damage has occurred from body positioning. | Core | 0.5 |
| Assist in the insertion, positioning, or suturing of closed-wound drainage systems. | Core | 0 |
| Assist members of surgical team with gowning or gloving. | Core | 0 |
| Clamp, ligate, or cauterize blood vessels to control bleeding during surgical entry, using hemostatic clamps, suture ligatures, or electrocautery equipment. | Core | 0 |
| Coordinate or participate in the positioning of patients, using body stabilizing equipment or protective padding to provide appropriate exposure for the procedure or to protect against nerve damage or circulation impairment. | Core | 0 |
| Maintain an unobstructed operative field, using surgical retractors, sponges, or suctioning and irrigating equipment. | Core | 0 |
| Monitor and maintain aseptic technique throughout procedures. | Core | 0 |
| Prepare and apply sterile wound dressings. | Core | 0 |
| Assist in applying casts, splints, braces, or similar devices. | Core | 0 |
| Assist with patient resuscitation during cardiac arrest or other life-threatening events. | Core | 0 |
| Cover patients with surgical drapes to create and maintain a sterile operative field. | Core | 0 |
| Determine availability of necessary equipment or supplies for operative procedures. | Core | 0 |
| Gather, arrange, or assemble instruments or supplies. | Core | 0 |
| Obtain or inspect sterile or non-sterile surgical equipment, instruments, or supplies. | Core | 0 |
| Operate sterilizing devices. | Core | 0 |
| Pass instruments or supplies to surgeon during procedure. | Core | 0 |
| Remove patient hair or disinfect incision sites to prepare patient for surgery. | Core | 0 |
| Verify the identity of patient or operative site. | Core | 0.5 |
| Coordinate with anesthesia personnel to maintain patient temperature. | Supplemental | 0 |
| Discuss with surgeon the nature of the surgical procedure, including operative consent, methods of operative exposure, diagnostic or laboratory data, or patient-advanced directives or other needs. | Supplemental | 0 |
| Incise tissue layers in lower extremities to harvest veins. | Supplemental | 0 |
| Monitor patient intra-operative status, including patient position, vital signs, or volume and color of blood. | Supplemental | 0 |
| Postoperatively inject a subcutaneous local anesthetic agent to reduce pain. | Supplemental | 0 |
| Assist in volume replacement or autotransfusion techniques. | Supplemental | 0 |
| Insert or remove urinary bladder catheters. | Supplemental | 0 |
| Transport patients to operating room. | Supplemental | 0 |
Occupation information
Sources and attribution
This page includes information from the O*NET® 31.0 Database (https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html) by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. AI Changing Work has modified all or some of this information: the O*NET-SOC code, title and task statements are reproduced in English without change; task-type labels are shown in the page's language and tasks are listed core first; any Korean occupation title shown on the Korean-language page is AI Changing Work's translation; any KSCO-8 unit groups linked to this occupation were paired with it by AI Changing Work's judgment, and the relation labels and statuses are AI Changing Work's additions. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.
Any AI exposure figures on this page are published by third parties, not by AI Changing Work, and none is part of the O*NET information. OpenAI publishes task-level scores (MIT License) for O*NET 27.2 task statements; each is shown next to the O*NET 31.0 task statement with the same task ID, whose wording can differ from the 27.2 statement that was scored. OpenAI also publishes occupation-level scores for O*NET-SOC codes in the same release, and any such score is shown on the O*NET occupation with the same code. Anthropic publishes an observed exposure index in the Anthropic Economic Index (CC-BY), and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes relative AI exposure categories (public domain); both are published per SOC code, and each value is shown on every O*NET occupation with that code. The International Labour Organization publishes a generative AI exposure index in ILO Working Paper 140 (CC BY 4.0) for ISCO-08 unit groups; AI Changing Work links those groups to O*NET occupations by applying the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC and 2010 SOC to 2018 SOC crosswalks as published, without case-by-case selection, and these crosswalks match many groups only in part. Where several unit groups are linked, each group's published value is listed, and any summary shows only the lowest and highest of those values with the number of groups; no exposure figure is averaged or recalculated. Any employment figures are published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the SOC group containing this occupation. Each source is credited where its figures are shown.
O*NET OnLine: 29-9093.00 Surgical Assistants
KSCO 코드·명칭: 한국표준직업분류(제8차 개정) — 통계청 고시 제2024-328호 (2024-07-01 고시, 2025-01-01 시행). 저작권법 제7조 제2호의 고시 항목이다. 명칭 표기(가운뎃점·띄어쓰기)는 해설서 2차 정오 반영판의 표기를 따랐으며, 고시 항목표와는 18개 명칭에서 가운뎃점 글리프나 띄어쓰기만 다르다. 통계청은 2025년 10월 국가데이터처로 개편되었다. 이 페이지의 KSCO 연결은 통계청·국가데이터처의 공식 연계표가 아니다.