“I’ve been wearing 2 gloves for a long time,” he says. “Now there have been a couple of times where I’ve ended up with one pair of gloves, and I felt completely naked with a single pair of gloves.”
Don’t wait for a mistake
Most safety measures come with some degree of inconvenience, and that can be a blockade for change. Sometimes it takes an injury or an accident to take a closer look at safety.
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Dr. Berguer remembers his initial response to wearing protective eyewear. He says it felt uncomfortable, and he wasn’t thrilled about keeping his eyes covered. Then, he got sprayed in the eye with blood during a procedure and realized the merits of protective glasses. When it comes to double-gloving, the same process tends to play out.
“For a lot of people, a close call or a needlestick is what it takes for them to think, “Wow I wish I had double-gloved,'” says Dr. Berguer. “That’s unfortunate, but that’s the way humans often react to a sudden event.”
Find your fit
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It’s natural for your surgeons and staff to feel uncomfortable when they first try to double-glove. “It does feel a little bit different,” says Ms. Ogg. “I encourage people to try different combinations.”
Your 2 pairs of gloves need not be the same size. Try out different size combinations, and you’ll start to get a better sense of what works best for your team. If your facility changes glove manufacturers, you’ll need to go through the process again.
“Give it a fair chance to get that right fit and get used to that fit,” says Ms. Ogg.
You add another level of safety when you wear a colored pair of gloves underneath a standard pair of gloves, says Ms. Ogg.
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“Wearing a colored glove underneath, as soon as you get even a tiny pin prick in your glove, it’s very visible that you have it,” says Ms. Ogg. “You know there’s a breach in your glove.”
A surgical approach
It’s good to have policies that encourage double-gloving. But if you want to see a change at your facility, you’ll need buy-in from your surgeons, says Dr. Jagger.
“If the surgeon doesn’t want to do it, nobody in the operating room gets the benefit,” says Dr. Jagger. “The surgeons are, for the most part, in control of all of the safety devices and protocols in the OR. If the surgeon doesn’t want to double-glove, the surgeon won’t double-glove.”
Many times, wearing 2 gloves comes down to a personal choice. The good news is more and more surgeons, particularly younger ones, see double-gloving as an essential part of safety in the OR. As time goes on, Dr. Berguer expects the trend to continue.
“I think there’s more acceptance now that we should use these safety measures in every case and not just the high-risk cases,” says Dr. Berguer. OSM
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