Disease Prevention

Nurses General Nursing

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Hey everyone! Long time forum browser, first time posting. I'm taking my last few prerequisites this semester, then I'll be applying for my school's nursing program.

On to my topic...

I was watching a YouTube video featuring a CNA talking about her experiences. She mentioned wiping an old woman's butt with visible herpes all over her lady parts. My immediate reaction was "oh god no! I don't want herpes anywhere near me!" She didn't mention the precautions necessary to do that job while protecting herself from direct exposure. I know that nurses care for people with diseases all the time. My question is, besides frequently washing your hands, what do nurses do to keep themselves safe from disease exposure?

All I can think of is wearing rubber gloves.

-thanks in advance!

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Gloves, masks, eye protection, isolation gowns, meticulous handwashing and sometimes you'll still get things.

My advice is use all of the above as indicated. AND never-never-ever touch your hands to your face until you've gotten home and showered. Wipe down your car steering wheel regularly, keep your work shoes in a bag in your car and change them before getting in after your shift.

:up:

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Ok I agree with the PPE and the hand washing but I don't give my shoes special treatment. If you have washed your hands there is no reason to not touch your face.

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Specializes in Prior military RN/current ICU RN..

I agree...I used to wipe off the bottom of my shoes once I was off the ward with cavi wipes.

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Ok I agree with the PPE and the hand washing but I don't give my shoes special treatment. If you have washed your hands there is no reason to not touch your face.

I won't go into a personal experience....other than to say I have it on this topic.

Think about it. People have patients with a wide variety of goodies. So....YOU might be meticulous with glove use and handwashing. That absolutely does NOT mean that all your coworkers are, not to mention the docs, patient and visitors.

So when you touch the doors, switches, keyboard, pens, equipment, station desktop etc you are touching anything they failed to wash off. It doesn't matter if you scrubbed or not. So yeah. Do your charting, tap that Pyxis screen and then touch your face. Or not.

As far as your work shoes. Where we have lived it's always been good manners for removing your shoes I the home. You walk through nasty stuff just in general. People spit, dogs poo and people track it I mean the nasty is endless. But in a hospital? I wish I had the link to an article I read about it. Not too long ago I had a patients bag of water rupture and heavily splash my scrubs, shoes and everything near. Of course blood, urine, amniotic fluid etc are on your shoes. Do you wipe them off? Of course but there's no way that it's all getting cleaned up before it's not in your treads. Do you know what all your coworkers are trudging around in? Well they walk through a variety of critters (think mrsa) then they and the patients families tromp all those critters throughout the hospital and you have to pass through that to get to your car. Then with your work shoes on you're sharing that flora with your car interior. Nom nom nom.

5 second rule on french fries or skittles in your car for that... not for me :dead:

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

Please go to the CDC's website and familiarize yourself with standard precautions and also other isolation recommendations :lurking:

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