This essay is about the handhygienes impac on the health care. How it began and how it has developed to what it is today. The essay is also about what Ignaz Semmelweis (the hungarian doctor) did for the health care by showing how easy you can save live by just washing your hands and how he managed to stop puerperal fever in his hospital by just a simple idea.
Mr. Gawande starts his literature on washing hands. He introduces two friends a microbiologist and an infectious disease specialist. Both work hard and diligently against the spread of diseases just like Semmelweis who is mentioned in the chapter. Something I learned, that not many realize, is that each year two million people acquire an infection while they are in the hospital. Mainly because the clinicians only wash their hands one-third to one-half as many times as they should. Semmelweis, mentioned earlier, concluded in 1847 that doctors themselves were to blame for childbed fever, which was the leading cause of
Furthermore, the Nacirema seek help of the “temple” or “latipso” for other serious illnesses, comprised mainly of medicine men and other female specialists. The culture’s devotion to rituals is undeniable as a considerable sum is required for the service of the “temple,” although “these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people’s faith in the medicine men” (173). This belief of the “temple” constitutes checking in to the hospital to treat diseases in the American culture. Often times a significant hospital fee needs to be paid for even a short visit and it is not guaranteed that one would be healed as a result. The American culture’s “ fundamental belief…human body is ugly and its natural tendency is to debility and disease” can help explain the society’s faith in hospitals
A report on the sanitary conditions stated that the lower classes were falling ill which lowered life expectancy. “These circumstances tend to produce an adult population short-lived” (Doc 6). This health reformer in 1842 was trying to help the working class. His intention was to make people aware that diseases were spreading and killing many. The conditions in which workers were spending most of their days was worsening their chances of staying healthy because the damp climate and filthy equipment was not being taken care of, which allowed diseases to grow.
Before the 18th century, medicine had not advanced beyond the practices of bloodletting and balancing the four humors of the body. These medical practices were not effective and did more harm than good. It was not until the Scientific Revolution that physicians slowly started to learn more about the human body and how functions. The numerous advancements of medicine in the 18th century and resulting benefits to European Society are reflected in the lack of medical practices before the 1700s, the creation of the smallpox vaccine, and improved techniques.
Keeping our hands clean is one of the most effcient and important steps we can do as humans to avoid getting sick or spreading germs to other people. Unwashed hands spread many diseases such as the flue, E. coli, and salmonella. Unfortunately, hand hygiene is still one of today’s most leading causes of infection in health care facilities. The risk of clinicians, patients, and visitors not complying with hand hygiene protocols creates a practice problem for nurses and their patient care. The cause of health care infections, also known as, health care-associated infections (HAIs) are increasing along with the rise of the inability to control or treat infections that are multi-drug resistant. Lack of proper hand hygiene is a major problem in clinical settings sourcing from critical care divisions where the most contaminations are prevalent. This paper will discuss how hand hygiene affects the nursing process and solutions of how to better prevent HAIs within the nursing scope of practice.
This achievement occurred during the Age of Enlightenment. Smallpox could not be completely controlled during that period but the invention of the vaccine made it possible to prevent the spread of smallpox and finally eradicate it 1980. As France entered the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, public health became an important aspect of society. Concept of equality enabled people to understand health in a better way. Infant mortality was focused and government was forced to regulate alcohol and ensure the safety of infants. Health education got popular. Occupational health was also focused and several occupational ailments were understood and described during this era. Significance of mental health was realized and it was started to be viewed as a health problem. It shows that the Age of Enlightenment was important for the development of health care field (Bouldin, 2010).
As I observed Nurse Olga’s daily routine, she practices all the components of the community based care. She taught her patients on self care, preventive care, continuity of care, and collaborative care. Her role as a teacher was that she told her patients on how to care for their wounds and how to take their medications. She told them what they can do to prevent from getting hurt in the playground. Couple students were daily visitors because they had chronic conditions like asthma and they needed their regular Albuterol inhalers.
In a controlled experiment he found that having obstetricians wash their hands in a chlorinated-lime solution dropped maternal mortality from 10% to below 1%. He, too, was derided by the medical establishment and, for him personally, the result was tragic. Semmelweis lost his hospital position, was forced to move from Vienna to Budapest and when he wrote angry letters accusing European obstetricians of being irresponsible murderers, he was said to be insane (even his wife agreed.) No doubt he was unbalanced to a degree and in 1865 the forty-seven year old physician was forcibly committed to an asylum. He died there two weeks later, possibly as a result of injuries sustained when beaten by guards, and it wasn’t for nearly another three decades as a result of Pasteur’s work that Ignatz Semmelweis’s findings gained acceptance. In our time, reference sometimes is made to a so-called “Semmelweis Reflex” or “Semmelweiss Effect” which refers to a tendency to automatically reject new knowledge that contradicts established beliefs – in effect, “zombie
Health care has been inclined by several significant events that have occurred throughout history. Change is the primary focus on what has shaped health care and continues to by pain of improvement, and to focus on the importance of our population and their needs. Though there are several influences politics, finance, culture, technology, health trends, and religions they all play a major contribution towards shaping the healthcare field. (Shi & Singh, 2012) Throughout this paper we will present significant events that have changed and affected health care today, give details about how the historical evolution of health care
At the turn of the century leading into the early 1900’s came even more struggles and health concerns. Slightly after the first world war came brought some impending hardship on the hospital. Influenza was on the loose in the area, and hit the hospital hard in 1918. With the occurring overcrowding still being an issue, The virus was able to spread quickly. In the fall of that year, 290 patients and 60 employees got sick. Of those infected, 32 patients and 1 employee died as a result. The following year, an epidemic of diarrhea came along and infected 85 patients which resulted in 1 death as
The hygiene movement helped in the avoidance of communicable diseases, diseases for example cholera, tuberculosis and water illnesses in large part by modifying the people surroundings. In the 1850s, John Snow assisted in recognized the importance in data collection and documentation. His actions terminated an outbreak of cholera in a district of London. Using the same methodology Ignaz Semmelweis, applied it to restraint fever of childbirth a major source of maternal mortality. The reason that this was happening was that after physicians worked on the death bodies, usually they did not wash their and delivered babies and contaminating both, the mother and the baby.
In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, the average person was treated within their own home for many of the illnesses that now send us rushing off to the doctor’s office or the hospital. Doctors were only called upon for extreme situations or epidemics, and for the most part, they made house calls. This was only possible because of low population densities in early America and the relatively primitive state of medical science. As time passed hospitals began to follow American settlement westward providing more centralized and
In this essay the focus will be on the significance of hand hygiene within the care of patients and problems relating to the compliance of this. The essay will explore legislations such as The NHS Constitutions YEAR, Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Conduct YEAR and the 6Cs of nursing, focusing on the relevance of these in relation to hand hygiene practice.
An application of the Marxist approach to health will first identify the role of medical science and it's association with all other parts that create a capitalist economy that are inherently geared to the accumulation of capital and that the healthcare system, and specifically doctors as agents of the state, promotes individual responsibility of illness (Navarro, 1979) that is evocative of the predominant ideology of the state and political system that is geared to a capitalist economy and individualistic world view. Secondly health as a
The case study briefly explains a situation between daughter and father regarding the father’s health. As a nurse, this can be very difficult to tackle due to the conflict between the father and the daughter. The main concerning situation is the father’s health, he has been admitted to the hospital three times within 6 months. The