O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6 O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T 2 1
2. Increase awareness
This means much more than just making sure every member of your staff
watches and participates in a safety sharps demonstration. You need to make
sure staff members feel comfortable using devices and activating sharps-injury-
prevention features. Devices and mechanisms aren't fail-safe. In addition to hav-
ing access to the most up-to-date devices, your nurses, techs and surgeons must
know how to use them properly. Injury-prevention devices require an extra step:
therapy and I didn't tolerate the drugs very well. Both therapies made me sick,"
says Ms. Daley.
Now 64, she's still on HIV therapy, and she will be for the rest of her life. "It
can be managed," she says, "but it requires vigilance. The drugs are potent and
can cause other problems." That she's now 18 years out from her diagnosis cre-
ates challenges that "they didn't have to deal with when my injury occurred." At
the time no one with HIV had lived that long.
The overriding lesson, she says, is clear. "Nurses will often say, 'My patients
come first.' Well, that's fine, but if you don't take care of yourself, you're not
going to be in a position to take care of anyone else, whether it's your family
members or a patient."
Ms. Daley points out that the risk of bloodborne pathogens now expands to
20-plus different organisms. She says self-preservation means taking every
possible step to make sure you don't get stuck. "If there's a safety device and
you're not using it," she says, "you're putting yourself at risk."
It's a risk she never would have taken, if she could go back. "Sometimes I
dream about being in direct care again," she says. "There's always a part of me
that wonders what my career would have been. It was work that I loved and that I
was good at."
— Jim Burger
