When working in any medical setting, it is crucial to be aware of the needed sterility of your surroundings and yourself. In an animal hospital, you will be handling patients with diseases or parasites contagious to both animals and humans. It is also important to be aware of materials, places and instruments that need to remain sterile, or be sterilized before use surgery of the places and things that need to be kept immaculate and sterile. The surgery suite is the most important if you are not actively participating in assisting a doctor during surgery. There is no reason to enter the surgery suite unless otherwise directed, such as for cleaning. When viewing a surgery taking place, it is appropriate to watch through the glass window or theater.
Under no circumstance should you touch any instruments or materials that are open during surgery. Patients who are being prepared to go into surgery are also sterilized with a certain process. Protect the eyes anestis eyes animals lose the ability to blink and their eyes remain open. The ophthalmic ointment must be applied in the eyes of the unnecessary sized animals to prevent drying and injury to the cornea removed for from the surgical site. A septic surgical preparation includes removal of the fiber surrounding the incision site by clipping plucking or the laboratories for removal must be done in an area separate from the location of surgery and the treatment area versus the surgical site. Protect the animal from hypothermia.
Animals lose body heat quickly during anesthesia. For all procedures insulate the animal from underlying cold surfaces, animals must be provided with supplemental heat. When anaesthesia, including recovery time will last more than a few minutes. Infrared or warm water circulating pads are recommended as safe controllable sources of heat. electric heating pads or heat lamps are not recommended, as they can easily burn the skin. Animal positioning, animals must be positioned so that breathing and or blood flow is not restricted.
Animals can die quickly from lack of oxygen if the head and neck are bent sharply or objects are placed on top of the chest such that they cannot breathe. If it is necessary to secure an animal to keep it in a particular position during surgery. Be careful not to restrict breathing or blood flow. Scrub the surgical site. The incision site should be cleaned with non irritating germicidal soap such as overdose iodine betta dine or chlorhexidine scrub. Do not get soap into the eyes or mucous membranes.
The scrub should start in the center of the surgical area and gradually work outward in concentric circles around the incision site. The site should be rinsed with 70% alcohol or sterile water following the same pattern. Repeat the scrub and rinse a second time. It is critical that animals are not soaked with water or alcohol, which can lead to hypothermia. It is important to keep all instruments used whether in surgery or in the treatment area, very clean and appropriately sterilized. For surgical instruments especially, it is important to deal with instruments immediately after use.
Even though instruments are made of stainless steel. That in itself is a misleading name. instruments can and do stain if not handled properly. If blood is allowed to dry on instruments, it can cause staining which leads to rusting and that forces the practice to purchase new instruments prematurely. Within 10 minutes after use instruments should be rinsed under running water to remove debris. If they can't be rinsed immediately keep instruments from drying out by placing a wet towel on top of them.
When washing the instruments take care to use a neutral pH cleanser. Never use dish soap, salient chlorhexidine surgical scrub or anything with a high chlorine content, because that will break down stainless steel and lead to spotting and corrosion. Next, ultrasonic cleaning is the benchmark for optimum care. Studies have shown that ultrasonic machines can clean 16 times better than manual washing, and that means instruments work better and last longer. surgical instruments have a lot of moving parts. A lot of hinged areas where dirt and debris can hide out places that just can't be cleaned by hand and the ultrasonic machine breaks down debris and those hard to reach places.
After 10 to 20 minutes in the ultrasonic cleaning machine, the instruments should be rinsed again, and then it's time to dry them off. Another crucial step, rather than allowing instruments to air dry, which can cause spotting and rusting. Place each instrument on a clean towel and gently blot with another clean towel. When the instruments are dry spray each with a lubricant made exclusively for surgical instruments before sterilization. lubricating instruments not only helps the equipment perform better, it can also help avoid unnecessary repair costs. lubrication can extend the life of your surgical instruments significantly.
Wrapping surgical packs, one of the most useful downtime activities anyone can partake in, other than folding laundry is wrapping surgical packs. There are two basic kinds of packs, one for surgical instruments and one for surgical gowns, surgical instruments and gowns. Once instruments are dry, close them and sort the following straight tipped instruments, curve tip instruments and other instruments. Organize the straight instruments largest to smallest, and the curved instruments largest to smallest. stack these all against each other like spoons nesting on their sides, then slide the spay hook or other longest instrument through the handles along the bottom. Lay instruments onto two layers of drapes.
Drapes should be laid out so that points are out, up, down, left and right, a diamond and not a square. Instruments should be laying square in the middle. other instruments such as the scalpel handle and forceps should be arranged around instruments on the spray hook to create a square. Place an accordion folded, finished treated drape and the appropriate amount of gauze to be determined by your specific practice into a square On top of the instruments lastly a sterilization indicator strip is placed on top. Please know that when you're done packing, your ultimate goal is to be able to throw a completely wrapped pack that is not reinforced with tape against the wall and not have it burst open. So to do this you will pull the corner of the top drape pointing towards you up away from you.
Then leaving enough of the fabric over the instruments to cover them. Pull the excess fabric pointing back down towards you. Holding the first fold down, pull one side across to cover the instruments in the same way the bottom was pulled across and then pull the excess fabric back the other direction. Repeat this for the other side. Now holding all these folds down, only the top should be left unfolded. This can now be pulled down and tucked into the pocket created by the right and left sides.
Wrap the second drape layer as you did the first using instrument tape, label your pack as appropriate. Place the pack in the autoclave, indicate the appropriate settings and start the sterilization process. When the dry cycle is complete, remove the pack from the autoclave. Ensure that the instrument tape has turned striped to indicate that the pack has been effectively sterilized. If it has not, the pack will need to be run again. The same wrapping process will be repeated when preparing a surgical gown for sterilization.
The gallon must be folded in the appropriate accordion fashion. Very similar to how the towels and drapes are folded. Usually a clean towel will be added to this pack as well. And of course an internal sterilization indicator strip