Handwashing Regimen
 

I'm pretty particular about hand-washing, but then I do work at a hospital.

I never touch anything (like turning on the water) without using a paper towel. I always use my feet to operate any part of a toilet or toilet seat.

I dry my hands completely, until there is no trace of moisture, and then use an alcohol product, if available. This is under optimal conditions.

However...

Sometimes acceptable hygiene is not possible. Sometimes I look at the facilities available and decide that my own crotch is cleaner than something I would be forced to touch. In that case, washing my hands would be counter-productive.

Sometimes I am literally forced to throw a paper towel on the floor. This happens often. If there is no trash receptacle near the door so that I can throw away that last paper towel, the one I use to open the door with (no way in hell I am touching the door to a bathroom), then I have no choice. I'm not alone on this: I've seen those little piles or paper towels just inside the bathroom door. Put a trashcan there!

If your place of business has a trash receptacle with a revolving lid, or (even worse) spring-loaded lid that has to be touched in order to get trash in there--then guess what: ALL of my trash is going ON YOUR FLOOR. I am not touching a goddamn trashcan. Sometimes the spring loaded lids can be propped open with something, and sometimes the revolving lids can have something THROWN at them hard enough to open them; but if that fails and it goes on the floor, then it stays on the floor. Not my fault.

you should just carry a 2 liter bottle around with you so you won't even have to go into a dirty old bathroom.


weirdo

...and what they found was that regular hand-washing is a good idea, but the germs you pick up in a bathroom are nothing, compared to the ones you pick up elsewhere. Your keyboard has more germs than a toilet seat, for example.

My keyboard is regularly cleaned, by me, with industrial-strength wipes. Besides, I know who has been touching my keyboard: ME. When you work at a hospital, you approach your environment like a crime scene: if you leave fingerprints (i.e. touch anything the wrong way) you'll get caught and sent to prison (i.e. get a flesh-eating virus). . . . This aspect of my work has spilled over into my everyday life.

I think you're paranoid Flint. Obviously.

I enjoy excellent personal hygiene but I also prefer not to litter public places. There's a middle ground, and I think you're way out of it.

Bullshit.

A thousand people take shits in that bathroom everyday, and touch that door without washing their hands.
Touching the door to a bathroom is exactly like touching every single person's asshole who has been in there.

And you wouldn't do that.

You're making an assumption there.

(Mind you, it's one I'd agree with, but it's still an assumption.)

I rely on weirdo's like you to keep wiping down the handle for me. ;)

Oh, I don't wipe it down. I make the minimum contact possible, with the minimum amount of pressure, at the least-likely used point.

Yes and I can see with my microscope powered eyes exactly where the germs AREN'T and avoid those germy areas!

I must have those eyes. How much would you take for them?

I can't give you my eyes. They match my super sonic ears...and I couldn't bear to split up the pair.

I take reasonable precautions not to walk out of a bathroom with a germ that I didn't walk in with but feel like in most cases when it comes down to me versus the germ, I'm gonna win.

I saw an infomercial for a listening device that mimics a bluetooth headset.



Give me the pair and I'll throw in one of those.

Nope...that just wont do.

You're a terrible haggler.

Speaking of technology. Did you know you can get a band to go around a pregnant stomach and it sends a signal to your facebook page when the baby kicks?

Is it just the first line of the song or the whole thing?

I'm thinking the whole thing, since you're supposed to wash your hands for at least 15-20 seconds.

Happy Birthday works as well. Germs hat that song, because they don't have names.

That's a lot of water

I wonder what the Sierra Club's stand is on this.

Wolf and I discussed this very photo on the old Bosque forum...I believe she told me that "Row Your Boat" is also suggested.

Handwashing is the number one way to prevent the spread of germs.

If we didn't do it, those of us that survived would need a lot more water for all that diarrhea we'd be having.

I rely on the telephone sanitisers from Golgafrinchia to keep me safe.

And my natural immune system.

And I wash my hands. But I do touch the door.

That, my friend, is some funny shit.

Speaking of funny shit, apparently our first floor bathroom at work is too complicated for the general public. I'll being going upstairs from now on. It is amazing the state people will leave it in, even when it was clean when then went in.

It all boils down to home training, bro. Some have it; some don't.

In fact, I did. And I was just about to post here about it.

Since I work in a hospital with direct patient contact, I'm even more fanatic about handwashing that flint.

I do the not touching doors on exit thing, and I've also been known to wash before getting down to business.

We've been complaining to the management about the spring loaded trash can ... luckily there is an open wastebasket just outside the bathroom door that is actually for the coffee area, but hey, trash is trash.

One of the advantages of working in the hospital, though, is that my immune system is sturdier than sturdy ... with respect to our native germs, anyway. I've been exposed to darn near everything. When I do get sick, it's usually because of exposure to my friend's kids. I don't have resistance to kid school germs.

If you succeed in preventing all preventable contact with germs, how in the hell is your body supposed to practice for the unpreventable contact with the real nasties? You're messing with your immune system.... Pee is sterile on exit....

(This from a toilet-hovering, foot-flushing, elbow-door-opening person ...but hell I risk it everywhere else in life.... it's not the germs I'm afraid of, it's the alien DNA)

I carry other people's pee from place to place with some regularity. To do so I do what I call "Michael Jackson Gloving." I put one glove on my left hand, because I need to use my right for the keys.

Pee is biologically sterile, but pee doesn't always only contain pee.

Meh, my immune system keeps me safe.

I wash my hands a lot, but I dont worry about surfaces I touch, I even sit down to pee without protection!! Yes, I like to live dangerously.

What does annoy me is the silly deli-biatches that have gloves on and then proceed to take my money with the gloved hand.

Money is gross!! but not worse than handrails and second hand books

Wash before and after patient contact. I carry a purell alcohol based hand cleaner with me in my pocket and use it when ever I think about it, which is often. I use the scrub sink in the OR when I am around them for the change up in cleaning solutions. It is important to not use the same stuff to clean your hands in a hospital environment or even at home. Wash your hands frequently and you will avoid most common colds, the flu, and a bunch of other stuff in the big bad world. Be careful out there folks. Oh, and get your damm flu shots.