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How Often Do Surgeons Wear Masks?

It is of basic knowledge that the medical field is responsible for dispensing and providing proper healthcare and medical services to their patients. They play a huge role in society since their services are every person’s necessity. The maintenance of the good quality of a person’s health and wellbeing is their top priority.

Of course, coming along with the services and responsibilities they provide for every person is the cleanliness, neatness, and sanitation of every single factor that will be surely exposed to the patients such as medicines, they must have a clean container and it must be ensured that the medication is safe to use. Medical professionals also ensure that the environment of their workplaces, medical establishments such as hospitals and clinics, have to be sanitized or clean to avoid any bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens that could possibly infect a person.

Do you notice how most medical professionals wear white coats or have white uniforms? That is because they signify cleanliness, sanitation, and purity and this is not only just for the sole purposes of recognition that they are medical professionals.

Added to this, the said things are not the only things that medical professionals keep sanitized or clean. They have to maintain their sanitation and cleanliness as well.

Do you notice how in every nook and cranny of a medical establishment, a container that pumps alcohol can be found? Besides that, since the article will be covering surgeons, they are medical professionals who are trained for long periods of time, which almost takes about 10 years of training in medical establishments with the specialty of their choice in regarding surgical operations. Along with the extensive and intense training, they have to go through before becoming certified surgeons, they are taught to adapt to an extremely competitive environment.

Surgeons, since they operate on the body of the patient, in which they have to open up to really get a view of the internal system and located then operate on the site of the disease of the patient, must undergo some cleansing of their arms by scrubbing it hard and lathering up some anti-bacterial soap to it. It does not just stop there because surgeons also wear a specific outfit whenever they operate on a patient in the operating room because it is a health protocol to ensure cleanliness within the premises.

These outfits or uniforms are called surgical scrubs that are worn on top of their v-neck uniforms, they also wear surgical gloves for the reason that they could sweat in the hands, which is natural especially in a nerve-wracking situation just like performing surgery on a person. The gloves will prevent the sweat from dropping inside the body of a patient which could possibly lead to infection due to a foreign substance mixing with their internal system. Gloves will also ensure protection for surgeons because the patient might probably have any infections that could spread to the other people that are closely exposed to them.

Another clothing or part of the surgical uniform that a surgeon wears is a surgical cap to prevent any unwanted hairs from blocking their face and disrupt them while they are performing an important task ahead. Surgical caps also ensure that there will be no hair that will fly and perhaps transport to the body of the patient.

Lastly, one of the most important parts of the uniform of a surgeon is the surgical mask. Surgical masks are responsible for covering the surgeon’s face as well as it helps a patient avoid any pathogen an infection. A surgical mask basically serves as double-ended protection for both the surgeons and the patient who is lying in the operating room and is sensitive to infections and complications.

Surgical masks protect the surgeons in a way since it covers half of the face from the infection that a patient could give since their body is opened up and there is a possibility that they possess pathogens, bacteria, or viruses that could be airborne and infect the surgeons that are performing surgery on them. Another reason could be if in any case that a surgeon might have nicked an artery which could cause a spurt of blood that could possibly reach the surgeon.

If it was switched the other way around, patients are protected by the surgeon’s masks since the mask that the surgeon who is performing their surgery on them covers the surgeon’s face, which lessens or avoids the risks of having the surgeon’s saliva from the mouth or the fluids from the nose to leak and reach the patient and infect them if the surgeon is sick or has a pathogen that could affect the internal system of the patient.

Surgeons in Wearing Masks for Long Periods of Time

Since surgeons are known to be one of the people who wear an abundant of masks within a day due to their job of having to be constantly sanitized, they are most definitely used to wearing a mask for long periods of time without even feeling any hard time breathing or asthmatic due to the mask covering the bottom part of their faces which consist of the mouth and the nose, two of entrances for air.

Surgeons before the pandemic most definitely wear masks on times when they have to perform surgery on their patients but since the world, I facing a global pandemic that is easily communicable and this virus could harshly attack a person’s respiratory system. This virus is called the COVID-19 virus, and the number of cases increases every single day, which is why it is advised that every person has to wear a mask to protect themselves and others. This will also help in flattening the curve and decrease the number of COVID-19 cases to end this pandemic once and for all.

Surgeons mostly wear masks, perhaps most of the day, and also layering them due to how heavily exposed they are to the virus since they work in the medical establishments that admit multiple patients during the pandemic.

Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1293053/#:~:text=White%20coats%20are%20worn%20chiefly,deliberately%20not%20wearing%20white%20coats.