How To: Put On A Orthopedic Surgical Hood

My favorite specialty in surgery is Orthopedics therefor I must to share what I’ve learned these last 6 years in the Operating Room. Step one to scrubbing total hips and total knees is putting on a surgical hood. Putting on a surgical hood is to help decrease the risk of infection in joints and also to help keep the OR staff protected from the debris created during Total Joint procedures. Putting on a hood is much easier than it looks and with repetition it’s not only easy to put it on others but it becomes easy hood yourself as well. Depending on where you work the policies may differ. Sometimes a facility may prefer that a circulating nurse put on your hood or depending on your comfortability level they may be indifferent to the Surgical Tech putting on their own hoods. As a CST it is important to know how to put own your own hood because your nurse may be inexperienced and/or their hands could be tied up so it’s a great skill to have.