strongest ire are surgical attire, home laundering of scrubs, OR tem-
peratures, immediate-use steam sterilization and NPO guidelines.
Clothes call
"Does it really matter if you wear your own designer scrub cap?" asks
Jonathan Kaplan, MD, owner of Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery in San
Francisco, referring to the AORN recommendation that reusable cloth
caps, if worn, be covered with single-use disposable caps.
"More hair is contained with the cloth hats than the cheap thin paper
ones," says Kristin Gillard, MSN, GI lab nurse manager at the Loma
Linda (Calif.) VA. Many question the recommendation. Others dismiss it
as borderline absurd. "Everyone has been wearing cloth hats in the OR
for decades," says an
OR manager from
Kansas. "If this was
really an infection
issue, it would have
been figured out a
long time ago."
So where is the rec-
ommendation coming
from? "Arbitrary ideas
and local lore guide
the creation of rules,
especially as related
to attire and NPO,"
says Catherine
Cooper, MD, an asso-
ciate professor at
Virginia
4 4
O U T P A T 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 | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5
z TRADING HAZARDS?
Could long-sleeve jackets
become contaminated dur-
ing other tasks and end up
posing more of a threat than
shedding squamous cells?
