Wash Your Paws.

Washing hands has taken on a new importance in the lexicon of things we ought to do. In restaurants now the restrooms often have signs reminding employees that they are supposed to wash their hands before returning to work. Some of them have a second sink, outside the restroom, in plain view of the customers, and the employees are required to wash their hands again, so the public can see that they do it.

In human hospitals and other medical facilities there are campaigns being waged to get doctors, nurses and aides to wash their hands more often. Hospital employees should wash their hands just before treating or examining each patient.

The obsession with hand washing by restaurant employees after they use the restroom is intuitively understandable. Many of the bacteria and viruses that are responsible for food borne illness can be carried in the intestinal tracts of people who are not sick, and have no reason to think they may transmit disease.

There is an additional cause for concern in hospitals. They often have large numbers of patients, some with infected wounds, pneumonia, or other infections, and some recovering from surgery or traumatic injuries. When the doctors, nurses and other employees examine and treat these patients they inevitably touch not only the patients - they also touch things the patients have touched. Microscopic infectious agents are transmitted from an infected wound, to bedclothes, to a patient chart or water glass, to someone's hands, to doorknobs, telephones, and computer keyboards, and eventually to other patients. Gloves help but it is not practical to have everyone, including patients, wear gloves, and change them every time they touch a chart, doorknob, or keyboard. There is a major effort in hospitals now to get staff to wash their hands thoroughly before any patient contact.

This problem exists in veterinary hospitals as well, but not nearly to the same degree. Most veterinary hospitals do not have nearly as many patients staying there as human hospitals do. Our patients are a different species than our employees so the patients are not as likely to be susceptible to the infectious agents that the staff is likely to carry.

I think our patients also have a better immune system than we do. Dogs and cats and other animals eat things off the ground, they lick their wounds and their body orifices. They eat poop and drink out of mud puddles. From the time they are born, their immune systems are confronted with bacteria and viruses to fight off. They develop a large army of white blood cells with many battalions, each of which is specially "trained" to fend off a particular infectious agent they are likely to be confronted with.

The environment in human hospital can provide an opportunity for bacteria like the Methicilline resistant staph aureus (MERSA) and Vancomycin resistant enterococcus (VRE) to develop that resistance. In any infection, and with any antibiotic, there are probably a small number of bacteria that are resistant. If the immune system cannot "mop" them up, they may multiply and be spread to other patients. A resistant strain may result. The more infections are spread between patients, and the more antibiotics are used, the greater the chance is that this will happen.

Using antibiotics, in animals and humans, at the proper dose, only when clearly needed, and giving the full course as prescribed, can help prevent resistance from developing. New antibiotics should be used only when lab tests show they are needed. And regular hand washing can help prevent infections from starting in the first place.