How nasty!!

[rnrae]

Yesterday, sitting in the breakroom with 3 other nurses, I was amazed to see 2 of them with dirty nails and hands. I rarely see any nurse washing their hands, in a patients room or in any sink on the floor.

Anyone else notice this?

[anonymurse]

And...they go from room to room putting their stethoscopes on the patients without cleaning it between patients and there is foam available at every door jam. Same goes for nurses.

Yeah. What I want is for someone to invent cheap disposable stethoscope diaphragm covers that will be easy to apply and remove and acoustically efficient, something like a super-thin plastic sticky with post-it note glue.

But stethoscopes don't bother me half as much as BP cuffs. And that doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as hospitals not doing admission teaching about handwashing for pts and families and giving each pt a container of Purell on a breakaway neck string.

What got me thinking about all this was a pt with perineal boils whose doctor had taught her to squeeze them with her fingers, but hadn't taught her anything about handwashing. Then I wondered whether any of the bills in my wallet might have been handled by her.

It's a wonder we aren't all like Monk. There can't be that big a leap between being a compulsory handwasher and a compulsive one.

[beachmom]

A study was done once on handwashing. It found that the higher the education level of the subject, the less likely they were to wash their hands. In other words, janitors washed the most, MD's the least.

I can believe it. My husband is a janitor, and he will use the paper towel to shut off the water and open the door, and we never use a shopping cart until he has disinfected the handle.

[harley007]

I just do not get it! The signs all say "foam in - foam out" and the foam dispensers are everywhere. I work in a cath lab and I am constantly foaming my hands and changing my gloves. Because of the procedures we do you may change your gloves 2 or 3 times with the same patient as you are flipping back and forth needing the gloves then doing things you can't do well with gloves on. But, you are all so right! When I transport a patient I notice there are so many people that do not take care to use the darn easy foam. In our unit I think we are a bit worried with all the blood involved in our cases so I do see the staff using the foam frequently.

[Oz2]

Major gross factor for food prep workers too. They have their mandated gloves on and you see them doing everything from preparing your food to ringing your purchase to mopping the floor....all with the same gloves on. Gag me!

[June55Baby]

At our hospital every department, every shift has "embedded spies" who monitor hand hygiene and report offenders to the Infection Control Coordinator. The offenders are counseled as needed! Seems to work except for the physicians even though they get a letter from the Infection Control Committee Chairman, who is an Infectious Diseases Doc!

[firstaiddave908]

The thing i dont get is it doesnt take long to wash your hands so why not take the time to do it you protect yourself and others.

[JBudd, MSN]

My hands are dry as bones, looks like alligator skin. I wash and foam a lot! But when I'm charge and keeping track of the comings and goings in the ER on a dry erase board, my nails look black often because of the smudgy gook. It takes a betadine scrub brush to get all the discoloration out sometimes. So even though I wash often, my nails look grody from the stains even when freshly washed.

[RN007]

I know one hospital that has public service posters in the hallways of the docs we all know smiling and using hand sanitizer or hand washing encouraging everyone to do the same. I have to admit they get more of a reaction (uncontrolled laughter) than isolation signs on doors.

GREAT idea! I'm keeping that one in my ideas bank.

[SaderNurse05, BSN, RN]

Not to hijack the thread, but I used to work with a nurse who washed her cat box in the DISHWASHER to disinfect it...never ate anything she brought again. In fact, if I have not been in someone's kitchen it is increasingly hard for me to eat the food.

[EmmaG, RN]

Not to hijack the thread, but I used to work with a nurse who washed her cat box in the DISHWASHER to disinfect it.

Oh. My. God.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Sometimes, in the gardening season, I find it next to impossible to remove the ground in dirt, no matter how much I wash. I also do some projects around the house, and oily resin can get under my fingernails that stains them, even if my hands are actually clean. So, it might be that the hands you are seeing are the hands of a hobbiest or home handyperson like me.

I will wash and wash, clean under my nails, I even tried bleaching them before work. I am a very active person with many hobbies and I refuse to give that up. So, it may not be germ laden hands that you are seeing there.

[Virgo_RN, BSN, RN]

Same here. I am a gardener as well, and there are times during gardening season, when no matter how many times I scrub my hands, the ground in dirt stays.