FirstCase Academy Terms of Service

Effective date: 09/24/2026 · Last updated: 09/24/2026

These terms are an agreement between you and William Guglielmo, doing business as SurgSoul ("SurgSoul", "we", "us"), for your use of FirstCase Academy ("Academy") at academy.surgsoul.com. By creating an account or using Academy, you agree to them. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your information.

If your school or training program has a separate written agreement with us (such as an order form or invoice terms), that agreement governs your program's subscription where it conflicts with these terms.

1. What Academy is — and is not

Academy is a study and training aid for surgical technology: preference-card study, drills, flashcards, exam practice, and, for programs, clinical case logs and attendance.

• It is a training aid, not policy. Your facility's policies, AST and AORN guidelines, and the surgeon's own preference card always take priority over anything in Academy.
• It is not medical advice and must not be used to make decisions about patient care.
• It does not certify, accredit, or award credit. Academy is independent of, and not endorsed by, the NBSTSA, NCCT, AST, ARC/STSA, or CAAHEP. It does not award certification, accreditation, or continuing-education credit, and practice scores do not predict or guarantee any exam result.
• Case levels are self-ratings. The level you give yourself on a case is your own view, not an assessment of competence, and must not be used on its own to decide what you are allowed to do.
• Clinical records support your program's verification; they do not replace it. Case counts are records for your program to verify. A location reading supports an attendance record; it does not prove where you were.

2. Accounts

• Who can sign up. You must be at least 16 to create an account, and 18 or older to purchase a plan. You must give accurate information and keep it up to date.
• One person per account. Keep your password to yourself and sign out of shared devices. You are responsible for what happens under your account; tell us promptly at admin@surgsoul.com if you think someone else has used it.
• Program accounts. If you join through a school or training program, that program's educators administer your account. They can, for example, reset your password, assign you to a team, deactivate your account, or release you to a personal account.
• Educator access. Educator (trainer) roles are granted only by a program's own educators, or by us when we set up a program. An invitation is for the person it was sent to: do not share it.

3. Plans, payment, and access

Current plans and prices are shown on the pricing page. Prices are in U.S. dollars.

• Prepaid, no automatic renewal. Every paid plan is a prepaid access period. No plan renews or charges you again automatically. To continue after your access ends, you buy again.
• When access starts and ends. Paid access starts once payment is confirmed — by Stripe for online purchases, or by us for invoiced purchases — and ends on the date shown when you buy. Month terms run to the same date in the ending month (or that month's last day, if it is shorter). The Six-Month Study Pass lasts six calendar months from activation and is not tied to any school semester.
• Confirming your email. You must confirm your email address before you can buy a plan, so that you can always recover the account you paid for.
• Payment processing and tax. Online payments are processed by Stripe under Stripe's terms. Any applicable tax is shown before you pay.
• When access ends. You can still sign in and read your existing records. Paid practice material returns to the Free Preview, and adding or editing study content and syncing new scores pause until you renew. Nothing you created is deleted because a plan ended.
• Offline copies. Material already saved on your device for offline use may remain there after your access ends; that is not a license to keep using it for paid study.
• Refunds. If you are not satisfied, email us at admin@surgsoul.com within 14 days of purchase for a full refund.
• Price changes never affect a period you have already paid for.
• Joining a program while you have a paid personal plan. Contact us first, so that your unused paid time is dealt with rather than lost.

Program plans

• Seats count active enrolled accounts, not logins. Educators have their own allowance (currently five with School / Program and two with the Paid Program Pilot). Additional educator capacity needs a separately agreed offer. Deactivate departing learners before assigning their seats to new ones; their records stay with the program.
• Additional learner seats on an annual program cost the price shown on the pricing page (now $60 per seat for the rest of the agreement term), without proration, and end with the agreement.
• The Paid Program Pilot lasts eight weeks. Its fee is credited once toward the same program's first annual program agreement.
• Setup and support. Program plans include the setup session and standard email support described on the pricing page. Large imports, custom content, integrations, and extra training are quoted separately.
• Learners covered by a program do not need to buy a separate individual plan.

Free Preview

The Free Preview is free and may change, including which content it includes and its limits.

4. Your content

"Your content" means what you create in Academy: cards, notes, questions, flashcards, photos, journal entries, and feedback.

• You keep ownership. You own your content.
• Our license to run the service. You give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, display, and process your content only as needed to operate and improve Academy and to show it to the people it is meant for — for example, your program when you add to its library or mark something as shared. This license ends when your content is deleted, except for copies in backups for their normal retention period and content your program is entitled to keep (see below).
• Shared and program content. Cards in a program's library, and questions or flashcards you mark as shared, are visible to your program, credited to you, and may be reviewed, flagged, or removed by its educators. If you leave the program, it keeps its library and the shared content you wrote.
• Your responsibility. Only add content you have the right to share. Do not copy textbooks, commercial question banks, or other people's photos without permission. Add information about a facility or a named surgeon only as your facility allows.
• Feedback. If you send us suggestions, we may use them without owing you anything.

5. Our content

Academy's software, curriculum, questions, explanations, instrument photographs, and design belong to SurgSoul or its licensors. We give you a personal, non-transferable license to use them for your own study — or, for a program, for teaching its enrolled learners — while you have access. You may not copy, publish, sell, or redistribute them, compile or export question banks, or use automated tools to collect them.

6. Acceptable use

When you use Academy, you agree not to:

• enter patient information — names, medical record numbers, dates of birth, photos, or anything else that could identify a patient;
• record attendance or a clinical case that did not happen as recorded, falsify or spoof your location, or submit someone else's work as your own;
• share your account, or use someone else's;
• harass anyone, or post unlawful, deceptive, or offensive content;
• test, probe, or attack Academy's security, overload it, or get around access limits or plan limits;
• scrape, bulk-download, reverse engineer, or copy Academy, except as the law allows;
• use Academy in a way that breaks your school's or facility's rules or the law.

7. Responsibilities of schools and programs

A program that subscribes is responsible for:

• deciding who is enrolled and who has educator access, and removing access when someone leaves;
• its own student-privacy obligations, policies, and notices, including under FERPA where it applies;
• setting up its clinical sites, assignments, and review practices, and checking location evidence at each site before relying on it;
• verifying clinical completion and competence through its own processes;
• not asking learners to enter patient information.

8. Changes to Academy, and availability

We improve Academy continually and may add, change, or remove features. We will not remove something that is essential to a plan you have already paid for without offering you a fair remedy. We aim to keep Academy available and backed up, but we do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted or error-free.

9. Ending your use

• You can stop using Academy at any time, and ask us to delete your account (see the Privacy Policy). Records that belong to a program, such as clinical records, stay with that program.
• We may suspend or end an account that breaks these terms, puts others at risk, or is required to be suspended by law. Where it is safe and lawful to do so, we will tell you why and give you a chance to fix the problem first.
• Sections 1, 4 (as to content your program keeps), 5, 6, and 10–15 continue to apply after your use ends.

10. Third-party services

Academy links to or relies on services we do not control, such as Stripe for payments and Google or Microsoft for optional sign-in. Their own terms apply to your use of them.

11. Disclaimers

Academy is provided "as is" and "as available." To the extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. We work to keep the content accurate, but surgical practice varies and changes. Always follow your facility's policies, your instructors, and the surgeon's preference card.

12. Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, SurgSoul will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data, or opportunities. Our total liability for any claim relating to Academy is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

13. Indemnity

If you or your program use Academy in breach of these terms or the law, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of claims made against us as a result.

14. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Before filing a claim, you agree to contact us at admin@surgsoul.com so we can try to resolve it informally. Any dispute that is not resolved that way will be decided by the state or federal courts located in or serving Jasper County, Missouri, and you and SurgSoul agree to those courts' jurisdiction.

15. Changes to these terms, and general terms

• If we make a material change, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect. If you keep using Academy after that, the new terms apply; if you do not agree, you can stop using Academy and receive a refund for the unused part of any paid access.
• If any part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it. You may not transfer these terms without our consent; we may transfer them as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. These terms (with the Privacy Policy and any program agreement) are the whole agreement between us about Academy.

Contact

William Guglielmo, doing business as SurgSoul · admin@surgsoul.com