does your unit test nurses for mrsa?

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Specializes in MICU, SICU.

Do any units out there swab the nurses for mrsa? The units I have worked on swab all pts on admission and most go on isolation. As many know we take care of the pts before we know they have it. So why haven't I seen nurses swabbed and treated with bactroban? I am convinced we are all colonized.

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Specializes in Not too many areas I haven't dipped into.

hmmmm...

We do not isolate for MRSA in this facility.

I know I used to work at a hospital where we swabbed for everything as soon as they rolled through the door.

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

We (all 200 nurses, + docs, residents, med students, pharmacy, RT, ST/OT, management) were all swabbed for MRSA last fall when we had a rash of MRSA cases in our unit.

We were all secretly hoping we came up positive, since you had to take 2 weeks off with pay, and it was the week before Christmas. Only about 4 people out of 250+ in our unit came up positive, and had a nice Christmas vacation.

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Specializes in Not too many areas I haven't dipped into.
We (all 200 nurses, + docs, residents, med students, pharmacy, RT, ST/OT, management) were all swabbed for MRSA last fall when we had a rash of MRSA cases in our unit.

We were all secretly hoping we came up positive, since you had to take 2 weeks off with pay, and it was the week before Christmas. Only about 4 people out of 250+ in our unit came up positive, and had a nice Christmas vacation.

lol...I can see where the hopes for being positive came from...lol.

I would imagine that if there was a sudden influx of infection, we would all be cultured to help protect our patients.

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Specializes in Trauma acute surgery, surgical ICU, PACU.

No, but I would sure love it if they did (the paid vacation to stay home and take antibiotics would be very nice, thank you!) :chuckle

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