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O U T P A T 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 | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5
Up for Debate
Ever feel like you're drowning in a sea of rules and regulations?
C
huck Knight, RN, BSN, CNOR, wears
Crocs in the OR. With no shoe covers.
And he places a piece of surgical cloth
tape over the toe of his Crocs to prevent him
from tripping.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
In the hyper-regulated world of surgical
nursing, that's a triple violation. Per infection
control best practices and OSHA, shoes must
be enclosed (Crocs are backless) and fluid-resistant (Crocs have holes
on top). And the cloth tape that lets Mr. Knight's Crocs glide across
the OR floor harbors a lot of bugs — and a good bit of dangerous lint,
too.
Mr. Knight would be better off going sockless in the OR. AORN has
no official position related to wearing socks in the perioperative
areas, even though AORN (and your colleagues!) would prefer you to
wear some form of absorbent footwear.
OR nurses can be fanatical about their rules, especially those govern-
ing surgical attire. Some are the vigilante enforcers, pouncing on the
slightest infraction or strand or hair peeking out from under a cloth cap
(that had better be covered by a paper bouffant!). If we had a quarter for
every finger-wagging e-mail we've received after we published a picture
of a nurse wearing a dangling mask — "It's either down and off or up
and on" — we'd have quite a stack of coins.
"As an educator for surgical services, I support having rules and regu-
lations," says a reader. "Otherwise, staff will do whatever they please. In
surgical services, there must be strict rules and a strong team surgical
conscience."
E D I T O R ' S P A G E
Dan O'Connor
