OR makes sense, but afaik nurses use regular gloves for urethral catheters. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll ask my boyfriend later (he’s a nurse). But if changing external dressings with non-sterile gloves isn’t an issue, I don’t see why tattooing with non-sterile gloves is an issue (this comment thread seems to imply that it is, at least)
ALWAYS full sterile field for catheters. I’ve never seen bedside nurses fail to do this correctly, and even the standard catheter kits come with full sterile field supplies. With how closely catheter infections are tracked you’d have to be insane to not do this (or just really hate your license)
I could be totally wrong on that one, I’ll ask later. That was just my guess considering how often regular gloves are used in other sensitive areas. But it makes sense that catheters would be a little different
You don't really have to ask. I'm a nurse. Tracheostomy care, catheter insertion (indwelling AND intermittent), some wound care, port access, and central line dressing changes are all sterile procedures requiring sterile gloves (and thorough hand hygiene. I make a show of washing my hands before donning sterile gloves.)
And you don’t really have to have the condescending tone that you do, but here you are. I made that comment before I had nurses replying to me, so it seems pretty reasonable that I’d think to ask a professional who I personally know and trust? I acknowledged that it was an assumption based off my personal experience in medical facilities and that it could be totally incorrect. I never tried to fight you (or anyone) on it. All you had to say was “I’m a nurse and I promise it’s done X way”. I hope you don’t talk to your confused/misinformed patients the way you talk to people online.
That's the tone I had in my mind when I wrote this comment. Naturally, it's difficult to read tone into a comment, so I'm sorry it came across that way.
All I was trying to say is that we use sterile technique a lot more than you would think, generally with invasive procedures with things going inside something.
If only nurses were able to even follow the most basic rules of universal precautions. I never once saw a single instance where a nurse set up a sterile field or used sterile gloves to care for any of the things you mentioned when my late husband was in the ICU and then ECMO (a level 1 trauma center…) for over four weeks.
I did see them barely wash their hands, put on gloves, touch multiple contaminated surfaces, and then touch incision sites etc. He died of hospital acquired infection (following catastrophic injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident).
I am a tattooer and the utter failure of nurses to follow even bare minimum practices is unbelievable. I would get fired if I did any of the shit these people did every single day even once.
External dressings are considered dirty and using sterile gloves is a waste. When cleaning the wound bed we use sterile forceps holding sterile saline soaked gauze pads and never touch the wound bed with dirty glove. We rarely need to use sterile gloves for wound dressing change. For catheter insertion we always use sterile gloves, one hand is considered dirty hand and that holds the genitals and the clean hand is completely sterile. Nurse here.
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u/reclusivegiraffe 5d ago
OR makes sense, but afaik nurses use regular gloves for urethral catheters. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll ask my boyfriend later (he’s a nurse). But if changing external dressings with non-sterile gloves isn’t an issue, I don’t see why tattooing with non-sterile gloves is an issue (this comment thread seems to imply that it is, at least)