Tech in Surgery Prep / Unit 2 TSC 033 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
How Germs Travel
The idea
Microbes reach a new host by five main routes: direct contact, indirect contact, droplets, airborne particles and vectors.
In practice
Take each route in turn, with what it means in an operating room. First, direct contact: microbes pass from one person's body to another's, such as hands touching a wound. Second, indirect contact: microbes ride on an object, called a fomite, such as an instrument, a surface or a glove that was not changed. Third, droplets: larger droplets from coughing, sneezing or talking travel only a short distance before falling. Fourth, airborne spread: very small particles stay suspended in the air and drift, so rooms for airborne diseases use special air handling. Fifth, vectors: biting insects such as mosquitoes and ticks. Most spread in health care is by contact, direct or indirect.
Where people slip
Indirect contact is the route surgery controls most. An instrument that was not properly cleaned and sterilized, or a hand that touched something unsterile, can carry microbes into an incision without anyone seeing it happen.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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