A study bachelor of surgery in Malaysia should likely teach you precautionary measures to take when performing surgery on a patient. Most of these measures are hygiene oriented since you will always be in contact with their insides and bodily fluids, all which can pose infection risks.
Whether the status of the patients are suspected or confirmed, infection prevention measures must be carried out at all times throughout a surgery.
Hand hygiene
As your hands are your main biological tools of surgery, there is no exception when it comes to making contact with the patient’s fluids, any bones and organs that were part of the surgery. Always wash your hands with a surgical hand scrub before putting on surgical gloves.
It is best to not touch any surgical tools with your bare hands, and more so while you are performing surgery, as they can be contaminated from close contact with the patient. You must also wash your hands when they are visibly soiled. Also, you might change gloves in the middle of a surgery prior to performing a certain part of the procedure.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Every respected surgeon is always dressed in personal protective equipment when performing a surgery. A typical protective set of clothing that you may be familiar with consist of a surgical gown, drape, gloves, surgical cap and face mask. Sometimes, a face shield is also donned over your masked face.
PPE serves to protect you from infectious agents when you are touching the patient’s body and its fluids or solid material like bone and organs. It also prevents infection among other doctors and patients the next you come into contact with them, because by then you have practiced hygienic measures post-surgery.
Surgical gowns have what is known as critical zones, which translates to body parts that are prioritized for protection. This includes your torso from top of shoulders to knees, and your arms from the wrist of your cuffs to your elbow.
If the surgery involves a medium to high risk contamination, you will have to wear surgical isolation gowns, which cover bigger critical zones than traditional gowns. Except for your bindings, cuffs and hems, all areas of the isolation gown are considered critical zones. In other words, your entire body will be protected.
Garments like gloves, gowns and face masks are usually disposable upon completion of surgery. Dispose them appropriately before you can move on to washing your hands.
Surgical tools
Surgical tools must be cleaned after surgery as they are inevitably stained with bodily fluids, primarily blood. First, this can be done with instrument transport gels. They are spraying devices that can make cleaning faster than manually doing it in a sink from the start.
Manual cleaning is preferable for delicate or complex devices like endoscopes or microsurgical instruments. If your tools can be disassembled, do so to clean every surface of their parts.
The sink that you will use to clean instruments is usually a three-bay sink, where the first bay is for rinsing with cold water to remove stains, the second to brush your tools inside an enzymatic or neutral detergent solution, and the third for final rinsing.
Once manual cleaning is done, you will transport the tools to automated cleaning procedures like an ultrasonic cleaning system or a washer/disinfector.
