I never had a problem in the operating room before, and this time, it took only a microsecond. Everything had gone well up to that point. Dr. R, the attending, was finishing up a hernia repair. I watched him before, somewhat abrupt and spastic with his laparoscopic tools. He placed the last suture with an endoclose hook, a sharp grasping tool that he used to dissect into the patient’s abdomen. He turned away for a moment, not watching where he was putting the hook. Before I could react, I felt a sharp sting through my sterile gloves. I instinctively pulled my hand back and saw tiny trickle of blood. Crap.
The OR stopped for a moment. Even the beep beep of the heart monitor seemed to mute. The scrub nurse was the first to move. She stepped forward and deftly pulled my glove off. I was numb. It was only a prick, but as I watched that tiny drop of blood ooze, I felt sick.
I saw the look on Dr. R’s face, not sure if the concern was for me or for him. “Did I get you?” Yes. “Is that your blood?” Yes. “Oh.”
The chances of seroconverting after an OR mishap like this is slim. I remembered that from another Dr. R’s lecture a couple of months ago. Get stuck with a hollow needle, and transmittability skyrockets exponentially. A scalpel or, in this case, an endoclose hook with a patient’s blood on it is much less likely to transmit HIV or Hep C. But then again, I could be a case report.
For a moment in my panic, I wondered if it was all worth it, the ultimate occupational hazard. I looked at that nearly insignificant nick on hand and almost felt something crawling inside my veins and arteries besides blood. Amidst the paperwork and the blood work, I thought about statistics and epidemiology and virology and then—I thought about Steve. Sigh.
