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G L O V E S
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Reduce your risk for infection. Surgeons bear the brunt
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Debunking the myth of reduced tactility. While it
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of needlestick exposures in the OR at 59%, with scrub personnel
a distant second at 19%, according to research done by the
International Healthcare Worker Safety Center at the University
of Virginia School of Medicine. During 100 hours of surgery, surgeons normally have contact with patient blood for 42 of those
hours. Studies show that glove perforations typically occur an
average of 40 minutes into surgery, but go undetected in 83% of
cases. Double gloving can mitigate a lot of that risk.
takes anywhere from 1 to 120 days to adapt to using double
gloves, most surgeons become comfortable in 2 days, according
to Ramon Berguer, MD, FACS, and Paul J. Heller, MD, in the
Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Drs. Berguer and
Heller reported that surgeons who routinely doubled up on
gloves mentioned decreased hand sensation less often than
those who didn't double glove. So be patient and persevere.
For your protection. Much of what your team does in the
OR is for the benefit of the patient. While double gloving provides patient safety, it also offers protection for the OR team.
Wearing double gloves helps prevent surgical site infection and
creates a double barrier preventing microbial transfer from team
members to patients or vice versa. Studies say that anywhere
from 600,000 to 800,000 percutaneous medical injuries occur
annually in this country, but also point out this is an underestimate because many exposures go unreported.
O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | O C T O B E R 2013