After a baby is admitted to our neonatal intensive care unit, nurses have several goals in our initial talks with the infant's visitors. Two big ones always come to mind for me right away: to instill a sense of confidence among family members and to help keep the baby free from infection. For a long time, I failed to connect the two issues, but I've learned that they do intersect at a curious place: the handshake.
I'm a handshaker. Chalk it up to a conservative, old school upbringing. I try to shake hands with every father I meet in our unit. I think that dads are frequently ignored in the NICU, and I think a handshake is a good start to making a professional impression and to making fathers feel valued. Every once in a while, however, my handshake does not have the intended effect. Recently I extended my hand to a father and he looked at me like I was an outright whackadoo, saying that he had just sanitized with Purell.
This set me out on a quest for more information about provider-patient interactions, infection and expectations. Here's what I found. Apparently, around80%ofpatients like handshakes from their physicians. A handshake with a mom can even be a neonatal diagnostic tool. Just be careful not to get hurt! However, my PubMed search turned up no data on the infection control ramifications in any setting, nothing about handshakes by nurses and nothing on the social expectations of NICU families in particular.
What do you think? If I wash my hands at the beginning of the shift and I use hand sanitizer before every baby contact and after every baby contact, is it okay to continue with my handshakes? For my part, in the absence of some data, I'm forging ahead... even if it gets me the occasional odd look.
I'm a handshaker. Chalk it up to a conservative, old school upbringing. I try to shake hands with every father I meet in our unit. I think that dads are frequently ignored in the NICU, and I think a handshake is a good start to making a professional impression and to making fathers feel valued. Every once in a while, however, my handshake does not have the intended effect. Recently I extended my hand to a father and he looked at me like I was an outright whackadoo, saying that he had just sanitized with Purell.
This set me out on a quest for more information about provider-patient interactions, infection and expectations. Here's what I found. Apparently, around80%ofpatients like handshakes from their physicians. A handshake with a mom can even be a neonatal diagnostic tool. Just be careful not to get hurt! However, my PubMed search turned up no data on the infection control ramifications in any setting, nothing about handshakes by nurses and nothing on the social expectations of NICU families in particular.
What do you think? If I wash my hands at the beginning of the shift and I use hand sanitizer before every baby contact and after every baby contact, is it okay to continue with my handshakes? For my part, in the absence of some data, I'm forging ahead... even if it gets me the occasional odd look.