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EDITOR'S PAGE
Dan O'Connor
What's Wrong With This Picture?
We need a photo editor. You need to practice safer surgery.
W
e liked this photo of this scrub tech so much that we ran
it on last month's cover. Our mistake for not noticing the
infection control breaches — outside cloth hat instead of
a disposable bouffant cap, no safety eyewear and earrings — and the
hospital's mistake for its less-than-perfect practices.
And there's the point: We both share the blame, we here at the magazine for not noticing the infractions before we published them (not
the first or last time that will happen) and the hospital for straying
from standard infection control practices (not the first or last time
that will happen).
"The second I looked at it, I knew something was wrong," says
Jenny Seddon, LPN, the director of purchasing at Midwest Surgical
Management Group in Downers Grove, Ill. "Hat, goggles, jewelry."
Ms. Seddon called the photo to our attention. I explained to her that
most of the photos that appear in these pages every
month come from you, our readers. "Have a digital camera?" we'll ask a source. "Great. Would
you please take a photo of _______ ?"
The photos aren't posed. And they're usually
taken during a case. What you see is how
they operate. This is not to absolve ourselves. It would be nice if we could filter out
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | F E B R U A R Y 2013
