LogFAQs > #888775343

Capn Circus posted...

What do you mean you stood on a stool? What if you fell over?

They have these surgical stools that the surgical team can stand on in order to get a better view/leverage. The catch with surgery though is you have to have a sterile field. And it is very easy to contaminate that sterile field if you are not careful. Pretty much the entirety of the patient and his surrounding area was sterile and had blue drapes over him. Only qualified professionals with sterile garb and gloves on are allowed near the sterile field. Which means me as a non-sterile student just in standard scrubs was not allowed anywhere near the patient. With that being said, I did have a head piece for hair containment, a mask, and eyewear.

The exception to this sterility would be the head of the bed. The thing is the the head has a blue sterile drape hoisted up above the patient's head. It goes up instead of outward/down. I want to say it goes up 5 1/2 feet from the ground. This creates a barrier for the Nurse Anesthetist who are also at the head to do their non-sterile work. The catch is for me as a student, the barrier is too high for me to accurately see anything. Hence the stool and elevated position so I could peer over the sterile drape. Basically picture someone using a stool to peer over a tall picket fence lol.

Now what happens if I fell over? Depending how I fell, the patient would be fucked. Contamination would occur. Depending what they are doing I could cause an instrument to puncture the patient. The surgeon and team would be pissed off as hell. Equipment would be damaged. And I would probably be kicked out of the program. With that being said, the stool was pretty broad, stable, and flat. So as long as you remained fairly still and were aware where the edges were; you were fine.
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IGN: Cheko