Lessons · Medicine foundations · putting on sterile gloves

Putting on sterile gloves without touching the outside

The rule underneath every step is one sentence: a bare hand only ever touches the inside of a glove, and a gloved hand only ever touches the outside.

Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.

What it is for

The first time you are watched doing this, your hands will be slower than you expect and the wrapper will try to fold itself shut. Knowing the order by heart is what leaves you any attention at all for the part that actually matters, which is what your fingers are touching.

How to think about it

Set the scene before you start: right size, intact dry package, in date, a clean dry surface at waist height. Then the two-glove rule. First glove: bare hand picks it up by the folded cuff, which is the inside surface. Second glove: the gloved fingers slide under its cuff, touching only the outside.

Worked example

Check the size, the seal and the date on the package

A wet or opened package is not sterile, whatever the label says.

Perform hand hygiene and let the hands dry

Gloves are put on dry hands.

Open the outer wrapper and lay the inner wrapper on a clean dry surface at waist height

Below waist height counts as out of sight, and out of sight counts as not sterile.

Open the inner wrapper by its folded corners without touching the gloves

The wrapper is designed so the corners are the only things you handle.

Bare hand picks up the first glove by its folded cuff and pulls it on

The folded cuff is the inside of the glove, so a bare hand may touch it.

Gloved fingers slide under the cuff of the second glove and pull it on

Outside to outside. The bare hand never goes near the second glove's surface.

Adjust both cuffs and keep the hands above waist level

Touching only outer surfaces from here on.

Your turn

Write the part of the first glove a bare hand is allowed to pick up.

Pick up the first glove by its folded .

The trap

Letting the second glove's outside brush a bare wrist on the way on. It is the one moment where the two surfaces come close, and the cure is to keep the gloved fingers under the cuff and the bare hand well out of the way.

Practise putting on sterile gloves on HoneA question on it now, a coding challenge where there is one, and it is remembered for review. Free, no email needed.