The article below made me think of one of the big culture shocks we experienced at the Klinik.
They don’t wear gloves when inserting cannulas, or changing IVs. Does that freak you out? It TOTALLY did me! I had already dealt with getting a staph infection from my PICC line insertion last July so this was a major “What did I get us into??” moment for me.
After my heart slowed down a little, my husband (he’s always so darn calm!) pointed out something very valid. They were so sanitary. The way the handled the equipment and the huge amounts of alcohol they used made it impossible to introduce any bacteria from their hands into my system.
I thought back to the many, many times I’ve been poked and prodded by medical professionals in the U.S. Yep, there had always been gloves. However, once they had the gloves on and THEY were protected, there were a lot of times they’d touch all kinds of things, rub their nose, move their hair, pick up that gauze pad off the ground and throw it in the trash, etc before grabbing right on to the piece of equipment that had been sterilized for MY safety. I pay attention to these things because I’m a total self diagnosed germaphobe. (I blame it on having lyme, since for years I contracted every yucky bug I was within a mile radius of.)
Anyways, it took me a minute to put the ingrained notions of right and wrong aside. Now that I have, I’ve gotta say, even without the gloves, I think the German procedure was every bit, if not more sanitary than what I’m used to.
Stuck in the Lyme Light 