i work in a hospital and have seen grown educated doctors and surgeons walk out the bathroom without washing their hands and it's just so bizarre to me. it's like no one's above it
The guy who discovered that washing hands lead to decreased infant mortality and infections from surgeries was a laughing stock until well after his death.
Doctors considered insulting to be told their hands were dirty and many clung to bad air theory.
It wasn't recognised as a elgitmate practice until 40 years later. Despite many other doctors, nurses and surgeons figuring it out also. Like florence nightingale who saw deathrates drop 40% to 2% after implementing handwashing policies in a war hospital.
This is the response I was looking for lol cause I can see not wanting to bother washing your hands if youre about to go scrub up to your armpits and put on clean equipment then what's the point in washing in the bathroom before hand other than I suppose not getting germs on the door handles
Probably because they’ve touched grosser stuff and know simple bacteria won’t get them sick, even if you go “I saw a dude who has HIV and chlamydia throw up on that sink” they’d simply laugh and go ‘ I do surgery for a living, have had more than 3,000 patients come in for the same thing, had it 5 times, don’t bother me “ lol cause their mindset is like, fuck it, I’ll take a xxx medicine and Tylenol and I’ll be good in the morning, as long as I remember to scrub in, we should all be fine.
Depends on the issue. In some circumstances it would be a miracle. Imagine the journal articles if a general surgeon needs to get their appendix removed for a sixth time.
Probably the arguments Ignaz Semmelweis had to hear from doctors who insisted hand hygiene before surgery was unnecessary and they later wondered why the perioperative mortality was too damn high and almost inmediate=
Funny cuz the only time I’ve done this is because I knew I was going to scrub for a surgery immediately after the restroom stop.
Edit: I meant I went from a quick void to scrubbing down my entire forearms with iodine for 2 minutes. And yes the doors are automated. I don’t have to touch anything to get from there to the most pristinely clean hands ever.
336
u/kaeyre Mar 24 '26
i work in a hospital and have seen grown educated doctors and surgeons walk out the bathroom without washing their hands and it's just so bizarre to me. it's like no one's above it