Heh. Nothing about fertility here, it’s just a run-down on how the hospital I’m at likes you to scrub-in for surgery. I’m blogging this because it’s fairly interesting (and a little convoluted), but also so you can get an idea about just how dilligent the surgical teams are about maintaining the sterile field. Hopefully it makes you feel a little better. Or not, whatever.
There are 3 scrubs in the process:
First Scrub – 2 minutes:
- Take a sterile surgical scrub brush and open the packet, careful not to touch anything inside it. Sit it on the bench, and turn the water on (our hospital uses infrared-operated taps you don’t need to touch).
- Hold you hands above your elbows and let the water run over your hands and forearms down to the elbow. From now on, your arms should remain in this position – never let your hands fall below the level of your elbows. If they do, start again.
- Using your elbow, squirt some soap into your hand. For the first scrub, use iodine-based soap – since it’s brown, you can see if your hands and forearms are completely coated.
- Carefully pick up the small plastic nail pick from the surgical scrub brush packet and clean under all your nails; discard the pick.
- Rub your hands together like you do when you normally wash your hands, then use the nailbrush side of the scrub brush to clean under your nails, over your nails, and the knuckles of your fingers.
- Once this is done, quickly coat your forearms down to the elbows with soap.
- Rinse under water.
Second Scrub – 2 minutes:
- Soap up again, using either iodine- or chlorhexidine-based soap – whatever you prefer.
- Spread the soap, making sure to work it in around the nails, knuckles, finger webbing and around the wrist.
- Use the sponge side of the scrub brush to go over these areas again.
- Once this is done, quickly coat your forearms down to just before the elbows.
- Rinse under water.
Third Scrub – 1 minute:
- Using soap, repeat the scrub process. Do not use brush or sponge. Clean only to the mid-forearm.
- Rinse under water. Hold elbows over trough and let the water drain off.
Starting Gowning:
- Put your hands together as though praying and enter the theatre.
- At the gowning and gloving station, pick up the folded gown on the left-hand side – as this will be the inside of the gown.
- With one hand pressing either side of the folded gown, slide your hands forward and move them away from your body to let the gown unfold. All going well, you should now magically have your arms inside the gown.
- At the stage, a scout will come and attach the adhesive strip at the back of the neck, and tie the internal string at the small of your back.
- Keeping your hands within the sleeve of the gown, start to glove up.
Gloving Up:
- Without actually touching the glove with your skin, pick up the first glove and lay it over the sleeve of your gown (palm up). The way to do this is lie the thumb of the glove on your thumb, and the open end of the glove over your wrist.
- Then, carefully gripping the glove in your thumb and index finger (which are both still in the sleeve), use your other hand (still in the sleeve) to pull the open end of the glove over your hand. This sounds hard, and is hard. If you do it right, you should have half a glove on, and the sleeve of the gown should have been pulled back to show half your hand.
- Gently pull the sleeve of your gown so that the glove slides on easily, and the sleeve of the gown retracts so that your fingers are all free. Be careful not to tear the gown!
- From this point, it is easier to put the second glove on, since yo now have a sterile hand to use. Glove up in the same way.
- Put on another pair of gloves.
Finishing Gowning:
- Your trusty scout should now come back to help you finish gowning. There is a cardboard colour-coded tag on the front of your gown which is connected to two ties. Holding the left tie, pull the tag off. It should still be connected to the right tie, which is long. Hand it to the scout, careful not to touch the scout.
- Once the scout has the tie, spin in a circle (therefore wrapping yourself in the tie) and pull the tie away from the cardboard that the scout is holding. You can now tie your gown up in front. You are sterile!
Now that you’re all gowned and gloved up, don’t touch a scout – they’re dirty.
