Washing Hands Before Lab

Why is it necessary to wash hands thoroughly after the laboratory period?

If this is school related then it's litigation mitigation. A gastro or other illness outbreak will discover the source at some part of school and washing hands is a good mitigater for schools.Some will say these are good habit forming actions. Others may say to not spread germs. If this is a workplace question then is a best practice thing which is a virtue signal. Well the school thing is also a virtue signal of supposed caring for pupils.

At what point did doctors start washing their hands before operations? What was the effect?

This question brought a story to mind of a scientifically minded doctor who practised medicine in the middle of the 19th century. He was puzzled as to why women giving birth contracted a deadly infection when treated by male doctors,but were much less likely to die if treated by midwives: The Doctor Who Championed Hand-Washing And Briefly Saved Lives

Are there really men that wash their hands before they pee instead of afterwards, like in The Shape of Water?

There probably are.I teach school and am somewhat a fanatic about washing hands. One of my rules is that anyone who enters my class (I teach small groups of kids who have dyslexia) wash their hands first. I wash my hands frequently.Years ago, when I first started teacher there was a pre K teacher who washed her hands all the time. She never touched a door knob without using a Kleenex. I thought she was a bit off, at first, but after a couple of years, I noticed that when things like the flu went around through both the kids and the faculty, she never got sick.I realized she wasn’t off, she was smart. I’ve adopted a lot of things from her since then.As to why someone would wash their hands before? That makes sense. But not washing after does not make sense.Wash both before, then after? The perfect way to handle it.

Why are gloves important in a lab?

Gloves. It is important to wear gloves when working with hazardous chemicals and other materials because they protect our hands from infection and contamination. Protective gloves should be selected on the basis of the hazards involved. Nitrile gloves protect against most chemicals and infectious agents. so you must remove the gloves and wash your hands immediately.

My doctor didn’t wash or disinfect his hands & wore no gloves. He touched dirty objects (phone, door, etc) before touching/stitching my open wound. What is the likelihood of him transmitting a serious infection/disease to me (hepatitis, etc.)?

He should have used gloves. But now we’re talking after the fact. There is always the likelihood of infection transmission with an open wound. Keep your wound scrupulously clean. Clean with a cleansing solution from the drugstore and after a week or so ( if the wound is not red, hot or swollen)continue to clean with soap and water at least twice a day.If you get an infection it will most probably be from a bacteria and not a virus . Hepatitis A if I remember correctly is a food borne virus that gets on the hands and can be spread that way. Hepatitis B and C are generally blood borne ( his not yours) so unless he was bleeding those diseases are remote also.Autoimmune Hepatitis C cannot be transmitted out of the host.May is Hepatitis testing month. Perhaps some group is running a free testing program near you that would calm your fears. It is hard to believe that in the late 50s and early 60s gloves were not used asoften as they are now - relegated to operating rooms and as late as the 80s some doctors were dipping their hands in a basin and drying them on a towel between patients.