Assessment Description:
Describe a habit that you are going to implement when you become a nurse that will protect you and your patients from being infected by pathogenic microorganisms.
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SOLUTION to Bio-205L Microbiology Lab - Topic 7 DQ 1.
SAMPLE 1
Hello class,
As an Emergency Room (ER) nurse who will be regularly exposed to potentially infectious microorganisms, one habit I will implement is properly disinfecting my hands. Hand hygiene is widely recognized as the most important practice for preventing the spread of pathogenic microbes between patients and healthcare workers (Faujdar et al., 2020). This practice will include washing hands with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer before and after each patient encounter, after contact with bodily fluids or contaminated surfaces, and before performing any sterile procedures.
Maintaining good hand hygiene will be especially important in my role as an ER nurse given the unpredictable nature of the department. Patients come through the ER doors with a variety of undiagnosed illnesses and infectious states and it is not always immediately clear who may be contagious upon their arrival. Thorough hand hygiene between patients will help interrupt the transmission of microbes that could lead to healthcare-associated infections (Haque et al. 2020). This protects both my patients and myself from acquiring potentially antibiotic-resistant organisms.
In addition to hand hygiene, I will follow standard precautions around use of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves, gowns, masks, and eye protection when exposure to body fluids is anticipated (CDC, n.d.). Proper donning and doffing of PPE helps form a critical physical barrier between myself and infectious microbes. I will be diligent about disposing of contaminated PPE properly after each patient contact to avoid transmission via contaminated surfaces or improper disposal.
I believe maintaining rigorous hand hygiene and PPE habits will protect patients who come to the ER with compromised immunity as well as vulnerable hospitalized patients from pathogens carried in from the community. It is an essential way I can fulfill my duties as a nurse to "do no harm" while working with undiagnosed, potentially infectious patients. By upholding these habits I will aim to curb the rising issue of multidrug-resistant organisms and keep all individuals within the healthcare system safe from preventable infections.
References
CDC. (n.d.). Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 101. https://www.cdc.gov/infection-control/media/pdfs/Strive-PPE101-508.pdf
Faujdar, S. S., Kumar, S., Mehrishi, P., Solanki, S., Sharma, A., & Verma, S. (2020). Hand hygiene knowledge, attitude, practice and hand microflora analysis of staff nurses in a rural tertiary care hospital. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 9(9), 4969-4973. https://doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_773_20
Haque, M., McKimm, J., Sartelli, M., Dhingra, S., Labricciosa, F. M., Islam, S., ... & Charan, J. (2020). Strategies to prevent healthcare-associated infections: a narrative overview. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 1765-1780. https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S269315