I start my practicum tomorrow...7am-3:15 shift! I'm way excited to get back at it, but I'm kinda nervous too. I haven't woken up that early since last year!
This week I will be in the decontam area. This is where the surgery carts with all the instruments that were used for a surgery, and other used stuff like bed pans and urinals come and we...well....decontaminate it! Haha...basically decontaminating is rinsing all the blood and guts and chunks off everything and then everything that can be mechanically washed goes through washer disinfectors...which are pretty much huge 3-chamber dishwashers (obviously more high tech and clean better than dishwashers do, but same idea-ish). There are some instruments that have to be handwashed and function tested and some that are super hard to clean that dont go through the washer disinfector....some take a lot of work to decontaminate. So anyways I will be bending over a sink a lot of this week. Woot. Oh yeah and I get to dress something like this person is:
This week I will be in the decontam area. This is where the surgery carts with all the instruments that were used for a surgery, and other used stuff like bed pans and urinals come and we...well....decontaminate it! Haha...basically decontaminating is rinsing all the blood and guts and chunks off everything and then everything that can be mechanically washed goes through washer disinfectors...which are pretty much huge 3-chamber dishwashers (obviously more high tech and clean better than dishwashers do, but same idea-ish). There are some instruments that have to be handwashed and function tested and some that are super hard to clean that dont go through the washer disinfector....some take a lot of work to decontaminate. So anyways I will be bending over a sink a lot of this week. Woot. Oh yeah and I get to dress something like this person is:
scrubs, gown, shoe covers, gloves, face mask and eye sheild, and a hair net! It gets a little suffocating.
And I get to use fancy machines kinda like these:
A washer disinfector like I was talking about:
A cart washer disinfector that the empty carts go in to get clean:
A pasteurmatic washer for things like rebreathing bags, respiratory therapy items, and endotracheal tubes....stuff that cant go in as high temperatures:
A pasteurmatic drying cabinet:
Ultrasonic cleaner: (these are cool, they work by cavitation- high frequency sound waves cause bubbles to form and implode which sucks soil out of hard to clean places like serrations, and lumens)
Automated endoscope reprocessor:
Another type of washer disinfector:
Anywho...I actually really liked learning about how all the different machines worked, its pretty cool.
When the instruments are done in decontam they are sent to the 'clean side' and are inspected, sorted and packaged and such, and then sterilized. I will be over in that area after this week.
2 comments:
I love your use of the word "Chunks" it makes me miss it... Hope you had/have some fun!!
haha...you miss the chunks? Yeah I never got anything extremely gross. I actually find the bed pans and urinals grosser than the blood and such though. One day I got a huge chunk of something...not too sure what. It looked like a partly chewed up cherry haha. Good times.
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