Occupational exposures in the operating room: Are surgeons well-equipped?

Background Occupational health hazards are ubiquitously found in the operating room, guaranteeing an inevitable risk of exposure to the surgeon. Although provisions on occupational health and safety in healthcare exist, they do not address non-traditional hazards found in the operating room. In orde...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2021-07, Vol.16 (7), p.e0253785
Main Authors: Landford, Wilmina N, Ngaage, Ledibabari M, Lee, Erica, Rasko, Yvonne, Yang, Robin, Slezak, Sheri, Redett, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Auroral kilometric radiation
Blood products
Cytotoxicity
Drugs
Educational aspects
Evaluation
Exposure
Health hazards
Medical colleges
Medicine
Medicine and Health Sciences
Minority & ethnic groups
Occupational exposure
Occupational hazards
Occupational health
Occupational safety
Pathogens
People and Places
Polls & surveys
Questionnaires
Radiation
Reconstructive surgery
Response rates
Safety
Services
Smoke
Surgeons
Training
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Summary:Background Occupational health hazards are ubiquitously found in the operating room, guaranteeing an inevitable risk of exposure to the surgeon. Although provisions on occupational health and safety in healthcare exist, they do not address non-traditional hazards found in the operating room. In order to determine whether surgeons or trainees receive any form of occupational health training, we examine the associations between occupational health training and exposure rate. Study design A cross-sectional survey was distributed. Respondent characteristics included academic level, race/ethnicity, and gender. The survey evaluated seven surgical disciplines and 13 occupational hazards. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the association between academic level, surgical specialty, and exposure rate. Results Our cohort of 183 respondents (33.1% response rate) consisted of attendings (n = 72, 39.3%) and trainees (n = 111, 60.7%). Surgical trainees were less likely to have been trained in cytotoxic drugs (OR 0.22, p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0253785