operating Room Lec

Scrub Nurse (Sterile Team Member)

A surgical nurse whose primary tasks when scrubbed in include retracting tissues, lavaging the surgical field, preventing tissue desiccation, and managing the instrument table to support the surgeon efficiently.

Aseptic Attire (OR)

Clothing worn in the operating room to minimize microbial shedding and maintain a sterile field, including freshly laundered scrubs, a cap/bouffant to cover all hair, a mask, shoe covers, and a lab coat over scrubs in non-sterile areas. Excludes street clothes and personal items like jewelry or mascara.

Endogenous Contamination

Contamination that originates from the patient themselves, such as contents from the small intestine leaking during a foreign body removal, which can breach asepsis and cause infection.

Exogenous Contamination

Contamination that originates from outside the patient, such as an instrument that isn’t sterile, improper sterilization, or mascara flakes falling into the sterile field.

Hand Scrub

A method of mechanical and chemical antisepsis using mechanical friction plus antiseptic agents to reduce microbial load. It typically involves a minimum of $5 ext{ minutes}$, covering fingertips, hands, and arms up to the elbows, using FDA-approved antiseptic scrubs (often with a sponge side).

Hand Rub

An alcohol-based, brushless method for rapid, waterless antisepsis when a full scrub is not required. It involves pumping the product into the palm and using a standardized rubbing technique to cover fingers, hands, forearms, and elbows for a defined contact time.

Box Method (Scrub Technique)

A systematic scrubbing technique where the hand and arm are mentally treated as a “box” with four sides, ensuring full coverage by starting at the fingertips and proceeding around each area (web spaces, back of hands, palms, base of fingers, wrists, forearms, and up to the elbow).

Closed Gloving

A method of donning gloves while remaining sterile with a gown, typically used by surgeons, where hands never exit the gown cuffs until inside the gloves.

Open Gloving

A method of donning gloves where sterile hands are gloved without a gown, used in situations where hands need to remain sterile but gowning isn’t yet completed.

Assisted Gloving

A method where a sterile team member who is already gowned and gloved helps another team member (who is typically gowned) to don their gloves, speeding up procedures and maintaining sterility.

Drying Technique (After Scrub)

Using a sterile towel provided with the gown to pat dry each hand (without rubbing) using one corner, then switching to a clean corner for the other hand, while keeping the shirt tucked in and hands above the waist to prevent contamination.