Help with Sterile Dressing Change

[Student4Now]

Hi all,

When doing a sterile dressing change, doesnt the field become contaminated every time you reach over to grab an item? Will someone explain this to me? ( I posted this in the LPN student forum but decided to also put it here as I might get more answers). Thanks!

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Well, that's kind of carrying the sterile principle a bit far. Technically, it's touching sterile to sterile that keeps the field sterile. The way you are implying, just being open to the air, the field is contaminated anyway. I would keep sterile objects I knew I would be reaching for a lot as close as possible to avoid have to reach over the sterile field all the time.

[LibraRNinNY]

We were always taught never to reach across the sterile field. Whether reaching across the field will actually result in contamination is debatable in my opinion (I think it's more likely that you could drop a "dirty" object onto your field), but those were the standards we were evaluated against. Better safe than sorry, right? :wink2:

[MassADNstudent]

We were also taught not to reach over the sterile field. Otherwise the field would be considered contaminated, so set up would be important.

[BanoraWhite]

I was taught this too, because you could drop an unsterilized item on the sterile field, also because your clothing or lanyard or something may brush against the sterile field, and because of gravity dust particles etc would be falling onto your field.