Clean Hands Save Lives A True Story

Didier Pittet has been the champion of hand hygiene. With the COVID-19 pandemic, his slogan “Adapt to Adopt” provoked a previously unimaginable response. In just a few weeks, everyone from perfume and wine makers to city pharmacists started to produce alcohol-based handrub, while YouTubers and humorists promoted its use. Heralds of the Adapt to Adopt strategy, they got creative in order to encourage hand hygiene on a mass scale. But reluctance, misunderstandings, and false ideas still subsist. Following on from *Clean Hands Save Lives*, this book explains why hand hygiene remains our primary weapon against epidemics, why alcohol is effective, why alcohol-based handrubs and gels are not dangerous, and why their distribution as a common good for humanity could become a model for global health, or even society in general. When we adapt, we feel invested, concerned, and involved. Nothing matters more for hand hygiene, which protects us and protects others.

The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third. In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds. An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.

This delightful board book follows the journey of a germ using unique heat-sensitive pages and combining interaction, play and learning, showing pre-schoolers the importance of clean hands. The journey, from the toilet seat to the tummy (and out again!), explores the concepts of germs being invisible to the naked eye, multiplying and causing illness. By placing their warm hands on the thermochromic patches, the multiplying germs are revealed. The simple, bright and bold illustrations by Charlie Evans allow children to develop an understanding of science and health from a young age, while having fun in the process

Semmelweis's exposure to the childbed fever was concurrent with his appointment to the Vienna maternity hospital in 1846. Like many similar hospitals and clinics in the major cities of nineteenth-century Europe and America, where death rates from the illness sometimes climbed as high as 40 percent of admitted patients, the Viennese wards were ravaged by the fever. Intensely troubled by the tragic and baffling loss of so many young mothers, Semmelweis sought answers. The Etiology was testimony to his success. Based on overwhelming personal evidence, it constituted a classic description of a disease, its causes, and its prevention. It also allowed a necessary response to the obstetrician's already vocal, rabid, and perhaps predictable critics. For Semmelweis's central thesis was a startling one - the fever, he correctly surmised, was caused not by epidemic or endemic influences but by unsterilized and thus often contaminated hands of the attending physicians themselves.

Handwashing, as part of basic hygiene, is a no-brainer. Whenever there's an outbreak of a contagious disease, we are advised that the first line of defense is proper handwashing. Nonetheless, many people, including healthcare workers, ignore this advice and routinely fail to wash their hands. Those who neglect to follow proper handwashing protocols put us at risk for serious disease - and even death. In this well-researched book, Wahrman discusses the microbes that live among us, both benign and malevolent. She looks at how ancient cultures dealt with disease and hygiene and how scientific developments led to the germ theory, which laid the foundation for modern hygiene. She investigates hand hygiene in clinical settings, where lapses by medical professionals can lead to serious, even deadly, complications. She explains how microbes found on environmental surfaces can transmit disease and offers strategies to decrease transmission from person to person. The book's final chapter explores initiatives for grappling with ever more complex microbial issues, such as drug resistance and the dangers of residing in an interconnected world, and presents practical advice for hand hygiene and reducing infection. With chapters that conclude with handy reference lists, The Hand Book serves as a road map to safer hands and better hygiene and health. It is essential reading for the general public, healthcare professionals, educators, parents, community leaders, and politicians.

Mike May spent his life crashing through. Blinded at age three, he defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and family man. He had never yearned for vision. Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary stem cell transplant surgery could restore May’s vision. It would allow him to drive, to read, to see his children’s faces. But the procedure was filled with gambles, some of them deadly, others beyond May’s wildest dreams. Beautifully written and thrillingly told, Crashing Through is a journey of suspense, daring, romance, and insight into the mysteries of vision and the brain. Robert Kurson gives us a fascinating account of one man’s choice to explore what it means to see–and to truly live. Praise for the National Bestseller Crashing Through: “An incredible human story [told] in gripping fashion . . . a great read.” –Chicago Sun-Times “Inspiring.” –USA Today “[An] astonishing story . . . memorably told . . . May is remarkable. . . . Don’t be surprised if your own vision mists over now and then.” –Chicago Tribune “[A] moving account [of] an extraordinary character.” –People “Terrific . . . [a] genuinely fascinating account of the nature of human vision.” –The Washington Post “Kurson is a man with natural curiosity and one who can feel the excitement life has to offer. One of his great gifts is he makes you feel it, too.” –The Kansas City Star “Propulsive . . . a gripping adventure story.” –Entertainment Weekly NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

The Little Princess loves getting her hands dirty. The trouble is . . . she hates washing them. Until she learns all about the nasties and the dirties and all the other horrible things that lurk and make you ill . . .