lunch

[healthcare2015]

Do all nurses in hospitals eat in their work area? I dont see how a nurse can or be expected to eat directly across the hall from CDIFF MRSA or anything else. How can one eat in the same place where they set urine specimens and blood samples. Maybe I take infection control too seriously.

[OCNRN63, RN]

Do all nurses in hospitals eat in their work area? I dont see how a nurse can or be expected to eat directly across the hall from CDIFF MRSA or anything else. How can one eat in the same place where they set urine specimens and blood samples. Maybe I take infection control too seriously.

Are you a nurse who works in a hospital? If you were, you wouldn't need to ask this question.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

We're not allowed to eat in the work area. We go either to our break room outside the unit, or to the cafeteria.

That said, if it's truly an infection control risk to eat on your unit, that needs to be corrected. After all, patients eat there.

[Jensmom7, BSN, RN]

Do all nurses in hospitals eat in their work area? I dont see how a nurse can or be expected to eat directly across the hall from CDIFF MRSA or anything else. How can one eat in the same place where they set urine specimens and blood samples. Maybe I take infection control too seriously.

From the other three posts you've put on AN, you seem to be desperately trying to talk yourself out of going to Nursing school.

If you've decided that Nursing isn't for you, that's ok. No one will think less of you; it really isn't for everyone. Just tell yourself, "I don't like this, I don't want to have anything to do with it, I want to find something else."

Then call up the guidance office at school and make an appointment. You'll save yourself a lot of anxiety.

[loriangel14, RN]

How would eating across the hall from C diff or MRSA be a problem? We eat in our break room on the floor.

[healthcare2015]

No

I truly believe its the place I work

Not me.

[MunoRN, RN]

Do all nurses in hospitals eat in their work area? I dont see how a nurse can or be expected to eat directly across the hall from CDIFF MRSA or anything else. How can one eat in the same place where they set urine specimens and blood samples. Maybe I take infection control too seriously.

Our breakroom is "directly across the hall" from a number of patient rooms, which often contain patients with C diff and MRSA. I'm not sure you have a very good understanding of how these bacteria spread.

As for urine and blood samples, I would agree mixing them with food is pretty unappetizing and a poor habit, but they actually don't pose a particularly high cross-infection risk, in fact urine and blood are typically sterile, and about the cleanest thing you could touch in a hospital.

[Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN]

When those people aren't in the hospital, they're out in the big, wide world with the rest of us.

[Jensmom7, BSN, RN]

Do all nurses in hospitals eat in their work area? I dont see how a nurse can or be expected to eat directly across the hall from CDIFF MRSA or anything else. How can one eat in the same place where they set urine specimens and blood samples. Maybe I take infection control too seriously.

Are you aware that community acquired MRSA happens more than Hospital acquired? How do you function in the real world?

Also, lab specimens are generally placed in the Soiled Utility room if they don't go to the lab immediately. Staff eats in their break room, which is a totally separate place.

There's infection control, and then there's Howard Hughes level germ phobia.