Conference vmszoo::medical

I was under the impression that operating rooms were cold
because bacteria, etc. grows better at higher temps.

I was conscious during my C-section and the room was chilly.
The anaesthetist (sp?) draped a warmed towel over my 
shoulders when I mentioned the chill.

    the rooms are always cold. at the brigham and at deaconess they
    always give you (the patient) thin/light but freshly warmed blankets 
    before and particularly after surgery to keep you comfortable.
    
    
    
    

    And colds are caused by a virus, not from someone physically 
    feeling cold.

    Simon,
    
    You walk around in it, I think is the key.  Try sitting very still for
    a long time in that temp in shorts and t-shirt, or better lying down on
    stuff at that temp in that temp and not moving for a couple of hours.  
    
    When I am hiking I will put on shorts in the AM even though the temp is
    in the high 40's to start. I will warm up quickly enough if I stay dry
    and walking, to sit around dressed like that at that temp would be
    borderline suicidal.
    
    meg

Good point, but then I am used to the cold.


Simon

    I hate to spoil a good urban myth but operating rooms are not kept
    cool. I have been in several and usually I was wearing nothing more
    than a sterile sheet, and I didn't feel cold. 
    
    For confirmation I asked Harry. He pointed out that most of the staff
    were wandering around wearing only sterile pyjamas over their
    underwear, so a cold room would not be very comfortable for them
    either.

    Jamie.

    		Sure,you typically start out with scrubs, but then you're 
    gowned and gloved.  Not to mention the caps and mask, and even goggles
    or some sort of eye protection.  It does get rather warm after a while.
    Most OR's have blanket warmers in the room too.  Every single patient
    that I've seen undergoing surgery, with the exception of one in a coma,
    complained of being cold, thus the blankets.
    
    			FWIW,
    				Bob

    As I said I have been in several operating rooms wearing only a sterile
    sheet and have never felt cold. I have been taken out of the operating
    room and left on a bed in a corridor and then felt cold, despite
    wearing track suit and having a sheet and blanket over me.

    The staff are wearing underwear and sterile pyjamas which are not
    particularly noted for their insulating qualities.

    Harry, who is a hospital consultant, says that the temperature in the
    operating room is not deliberately kept cool. He can see no medical
    reason for it being kept cool and points out that the patient will have
    enough problems with the trauma of surgical and does not need
    hypothermia on top of it.

    So I strongly suspect it is an urban myth.
    
    Jamie.

  Re -.1: Medical practices are quite different in Europe than in the U.S.
So it is quite possible that ORs are kept warm in Europe and cold in the U.S.
  It is a fact that something, or a combination of things, is causing a very
high rate of colds, flu, etc. among hospital patients in the U.S. This is 
partly due to high exposure to these germs (despite hospitals' attempts at
sanitation) and to the weakened condition of patients, which makes them more
likely to come down with the diseases when exposed. However, I think that
getting chilled during surgery could be a factor in this too. The empirical
evidence that exposure to cold increases the risk of catching a cold is very
strong.

    Not just in the US does it happen, seems to be a North American thing
    cause it's the same in Canada, cold in the O.R. and I might add, in
    Canada delivery rooms are also extremely cold.  I had one daughter in 
    the middle of summer, extremely hot outside, and I thought I was 
    going to get hypothermia.

    		I was only pointing out that the patients are typically
    the ones that are cold, not the staff.  And yes, after 12 hours in an
    OR I would probably be rather warm myself.  But just for grins, I'm gonna
    check out St. Joe's OR tonight and see what the mean temperature is (if
    I can make it over there).
    
    			Bob
    

    I've had a couple of minor surgeries which I was wide awake thru, and I
    remember being in the OR, on the steel table and warm until they
    started an IV saline drip. They claimed it was room temp, which was
    about 70, but I pointed out that was just a little bit cooler than my
    body which usually runs a little over 99. 
    
    
    Deb

    The IV drip does not make you feel cold. I had several over long
    periods.

    Jamie.

    		The OR was at a balmy 68 degree's when I checked.  That
    was OR #1, room #2 was 66.  So, is there a pre-set temp, not that I
    could tell.
    	As for IV's, they're typically at room temp, minimum.  Sometimes
    the solutions are kept in a warmer.  I've tucked many an IV med under
    my arm (no not against my skin!) to warm them, if I'd forgotten to
    take it out of the fridge ahead of time.  
    
    			Bob  

    I asked my sister, who has been a nurse on both sides of the Atlantic,
    for around 35 years.
    
    She read the article in the news recently about keeping a patient
    warm during and after an operation.  She does not think that the
    OR is KEPT cold on purpose.  It can be very hectic and hot in the
    OR.   The staff is hot so the temp is kept down, don't want the 
    surgeon sweating into the patient do we. The poor patient is lying 
    motionless in the middle of it all.  The patient's body is in several 
    degrees of shock during and after an operation.  Not being awake, they 
    don't complain of the cold so my guess is no one thought about it.  
    
    If you keep someone warm after an accident, why wouldn't you keep them 
    warm during and after an operation.  It would make sense to me.  
    
    Keeping the patient warm is just one of the many small improvements being 
    made that's making operations a little safer.

    >The patient's body is in several  degrees of shock during and after an
    >operation.  Not being awake, they  don't complain of the cold so my
    >guess is no one thought about it.

    Of course no one thought about it. After all the average medical
    practitioner has an IQ roughly equal to his/her shoe size. Add to that
    the fact that members of the medical profession never end up on the
    operation table themselves, completely accounts for this lack of
    communication between patient and doctor.

    Right I'll explain it one last time.

    The patient is in surgical shock during and after the operation. This
    causes the patient to feel cold even although the ambient temperature
    is quite warm. If the patient is conscious and complains, the staff will
    compensate for this by insulating the patient with blankets. If the
    patient is unconscious then it doesn't matter.

    There are some surgical procedures which require the patient's
    temperature to be drastically lowered. This is done by cooling the blood
    as it goes through the heart-lung machine. When they are finished the
    restore the patients temperature by warming the blood in the same
    manner.

    I have just checked with medical personnel in the USA. Operating Rooms
    are kept usually in the mid to upper 60s. Delivery Rooms are usually
    kept a bit warmer.

    So the idea that Operating Rooms are kept cold, is a false one.

    Jamie.                      

    		Oh really?  One of my patients, who shall remain nameless,
    was in with cardiac problems.  He had already had a mitral valve
    replacement.  I wonder how the heck it got there, since he's never been
    on an operating table (he's a physician)?
    	      These medical practitioner's that you speak of, are people
    too...

    	 I've been with the company since 1979 and I just finished school.
    		Stay tuned.....it will be nice for ME to make the choice
    of leaving and not having DIGITAL make it for me.  I consider myself
    to be rather fortunate at this point in time, thank you very much.
    
    			Bob
                                              

    >		Oh really?  One of my patients, who shall remain nameless,
    >was in with cardiac problems.  He had already had a mitral valve
    >replacement.  I wonder how the heck it got there, since he's never been
    >on an operating table (he's a physician)?
    >	      These medical practitioner's that you speak of, are people
    >too...
    
    Go back and reread the first paragraph of my note. This time consider
    the possibility that I was being sarcastic in replying to a note that
    assumed the medical profession were so collectively stupid that they
    could not make the simple discovery that surgical shock makes the
    patient feel cold.

    Jamie.

    Now boys, let's play nicely here. No "running with scissors" allowed 
    in this classroom.  ;^)
    
    Bill
    

Let's also define "cold" :-)

To me, mid-to-upper 60s is a cold room.
72 and up is comfortable.
78 and higher is warm to hot.

So, as far as I'm concerned, operating rooms are 
cold!

    Don't move to Europe, you would not be able to afford the heating bills
    in winter.

    Jamie.