Infection control? Or the lack there of?:confused:

[1Path]

Since I recelty started working in a clinic again, I've been appalled at the lack of basic infection control I see practiced ie washing your hands before and after meeting with a patient. And no offense to the youngin's but they are the primary culprits although some of the oldies but goodies are doing it too.

So I'm curious about how nontrads, especially those with prior experiences like nurses, handle these types of situations particularily when the person is your superior and/or younger than you.

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[RxnMan]

Of the places I've been, there's some good attendings and some bad ones too. The only thing you can do (without sounding like an jerk) is to lead by example.

 

[Tired Pigeon]

This really appalls me, and I don't know what to do about it. As a med student, I'm at the bottom of the food chain & I don't feel comfortable saying anything ... I try to "lead by example", but no one's really looking to my example. Any ideas on how to handle this?

 

[1Path]

This really appalls me, and I don't know what to do about it. As a med student, I'm at the bottom of the food chain & I don't feel comfortable saying anything ... I try to "lead by example", but no one's really looking to my example. Any ideas on how to handle this?

I'm just wondering, don't we have an ethical obligation to say something to someone?😕 No doubt, this is a sticky situation!

For folks younger than me, leading by example works so far. But for older folks, I'm still working on exactly what to do.😕

 

[QofQuimica]

Someone actually did a study about this. Turns out that nurses have the best compliance and physicians are among the worst. But before you go clapping the nurses on the back, like half of them don't wash their hands either. Kind of scary. The longer I'm in med school, the more I keep feeling like there's no way I'd ever want to be a hospital patient....

 

[kronickm]

This is a major major major issue in my hospital. A great deal of research on this topic has been done. Hospital aquired infections are a major killer of inpatients. I have the benefit of working for a very large and oft JCAHO inspected hospital, as such, risk management and infectious diseases have made hand-washing their absolute number #1 priority (with regular in-services on hand washing and such).

I came across a great article somewhere (I can't remeber where, nor can I find it at the moment) that should be shared.

A clever infectious disease doctor at a hospital noticed the number of hospital aquired infections (HAI) and the lack of hand washing by the doctors. This doctor decided to prove to the doctors the effect of such bad hygeine. The hands of many doctors were cultured unexpectedly, and, as expected, a lot of stuff grew. To hammer home the point the infectious disease physician, in concert with risk management, turned all of the cultures into a screen saver that was put on every computer int he hospital. Needless to say the compliance increased.

It amazes me that such things are not emphasized in medical school (along with medical ethics but that is neither here nor there).

Moral of the story...wash your hands.