Study shows anesthesiologists are a major source of surgical contamination

Researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center studied 164 operating room procedures in an effort to assess how bacteria find their way into surgical sites causing nosocomial infections.  They found that bacteria were transmitted into the O. R. in nearly 90 percent of surgical procedures. They found that more than ten percent of patients suffered contaminated IV lines, with the identified contamination coming from anesthesiologists or nurse-anesthetists about half the time.

The Editor-in-chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia, Dr. Steven Shafer, explained that  "it's clear that not enough anesthesia providers are disinfecting themselves carefully enough before surgical procedures....compliance is poor... "