Question

You are a brand new medical assistant and it is your first day at a very busy Family Practice clinic. You are shadowing an experienced medical assistant and while setting up a sterile tray she contaminate the field by reaching across it, which cause her scrub top to touch the scalpel handle. You tell her that she touched it, but she say “its fine, no one will know and there is no time to do another one” and continues to set it up. What would you do, if anything? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Question: What would you do if you find there is some breach in aseptic techniques. Why? or Why not?

Answer:

When a break in sterile technique occurs, it should be reported and corrective action should be taken immediately unless the patients safety is at risk. Here in the given scenario, the experienced medical asssistant has touched the scalpel handle. Scalpel is used to make skin inscisions, so there is high risk for contamination of wound that leads to wound infection. And as she is trying to hide it, by saying that ' no one will know and there is no time to do another one' shows that she is not seroius about the patient safety. So it should be escalated inorder to take corrective and preventive action.