Orthopaedics for beginners

Doc Gurley referred to a recent outbreak of infection in Medical Grand Rounds 4:42.

Another good post (by the same) here listing 10 creative ways to get your doctor to wash his hands.

In theatre, things have to be sterile, or as close as possible. Obviously prosthetics in particular have to be sterile (a dose of osteomyelitis will spoil anyones year).

So the surgeons and assistants (which includes yours truly) have to wear helmets to allow their faces to be covered in a sterile burkha. The first time I did this (for a THR), unfortunately the person who helped me on with it secured the helmet just a tad too tight (to compensate for the Ugly Betty quantities of hair that genetics has given me). The consequence was me scrubbing out after only 2 hours with a massive headache (like a crushing band around my head, gosh, funng that), and feeling better almost instantly after taking off the helmet. I did have a lovely welt on my forehead, similar to one from a scuba mask. A glass of water later I was back in theatre. In fact I learned heaps while scrubbed out as well, because I went and parked myself by the prosthetist and got him to explain all the hardware to me while the nailing and reaming was going on.

Personally I always associated these helmets with biosecurity type incidents, like when you have an Ebola outbreak in County General Hospital or Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, or in a Michael Crichton novel. Kiwi-Bird, a medlet in Malaysia also blogged about the helmet.

Orthopaedics is (so far) going better than expected. In one afternoon (joint replacements are not exactly quickies) I get to realise 2 of my childhood dreams - surgeon and astronaut. Now if only there was a way to be an life saving, space exploring prima ballerina....