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Physician Plague

© Neal Rolfe Chamberlain

to spot checking for dirty handed disease spreading healthcare professionals have been tried to no avail. Nurses, physicians, physical therapists, and phlebotomists (they take your blood) just do not wash their hands enough.

There are many reasons why healthcare professionals don't wash their hands. Unfortunately, for patients infected with superbugs none of the reasons are good ones (Too hurried, forgetting, short staffed, don't want to do it, will mess up their skin, will have to remove jewelry, takes too much time). While pondering this seemingly unsolvable problem an idea occurred to me. I too am a patient. I am not a physician so when I get ill I need to see my physician for help. The question I asked myself was, "Do I require the healthcare workers that touch me to wash their hands?" My answer was, "NO".

Therefore I determined that the next time I go to the doctors I will be asking the nurse who gets my vitals (pulse, blood pressure, temperature) if they have washed their hands. When I get blood taken I will be asking if they washed their hands. When the doctor examines me I will be asking if they washed their hands. When someone is examining one of my loved ones in the hospital I will be asking if they washed their hands. We are after all the ones paying the bills. If they will not heed a simple request that is really in my best interest then I don't want them to be caring for me or my loved ones. I encourage you all to do the same. If we patients who are the customers demand from our healthcare professionals to act like caring clean-handed people I think we might see fewer superbugs in us and our loved ones.

Take Care and Think Microbiologically! For more microbiology articles go to Suite101:Microbiology.