I have an interview for the OR this friday.. i'm very excited and nervous at the same time! One of the questions I am anticipating in the interview will be something along the lines of "if you witness a more senior nurse (or surgeon) breaking aseptic technique, how would you react?"
I was wondering if anyone had any ideas how i could answer this question?
Some ideas I had were:
- approach the nurse discreetly and point out the event. The nurse might have made the mistake unintentionally and it's my job to advocate for the patient's safety.
However.. if the nurse purposelly breaks sterility to cut corners and to avoid prolonging the case then I know this can be a serious problem. But.. how to address it? and how far do you go? It doesn't seem feasible re-set all the equiptment up.
Thank you, Scrubby! Yes, this is exactly the type of situation I was concerned about, when the surgeon insists on using the instruments despite contamination. What did you do in that situation? Was the surgeon persuaded to stop?
I've found that some surgeons just don't care about things like holes in sterile wrapping etc. The reason I dropped the instrument on the floor like I did is because I knew it was the only thing I could do to stop the instrument being used. By dropping it on the floor it is such an obvious breach of sterility (more than holes in the wrapping) and even the surgeon isn't stupid enough to use an instrument that has been on the floor.
I didn't really hide the fact I did it deliberately either. I sort of said "oh....what a shame, I'll have to go get another STERILE instrument now'.Maybe this isn't the most professional way to advocate for my patient but it saved a lot of time instead of arguing with the surgeons and having to explain the basics of asepsis.
Scrubby
1,313 Posts
I've found that some surgeons just don't care about things like holes in sterile wrapping etc. The reason I dropped the instrument on the floor like I did is because I knew it was the only thing I could do to stop the instrument being used. By dropping it on the floor it is such an obvious breach of sterility (more than holes in the wrapping) and even the surgeon isn't stupid enough to use an instrument that has been on the floor.
I didn't really hide the fact I did it deliberately either. I sort of said "oh....what a shame, I'll have to go get another STERILE instrument now'.Maybe this isn't the most professional way to advocate for my patient but it saved a lot of time instead of arguing with the surgeons and having to explain the basics of asepsis.