Clean Room Work

[Jeannette]

Some form I was filling out yesterday had a line about a clean room on it - you know, those rooms where you have to wear a special suit in and have your shoes and clothes and face covered and you even breathe inside the suit - and in some cases are hooked up to external breathing things so that you don't contaminate the air in the room with your breath.

That gave me pause while I tried to figure out if it was even possible for someone using a chair to even work in a clean room. I thought about possibilities involving second and/or third chairs and whatnot - but probably due to a failure of imagination I was unable to come up with a truly "clean" way to handle a wheelchair in a clean room.

(no, this isn't something I'm likely to be doing anytime soon, I was just wondering)

Anyone have any ideas how this might be accomplished?

[betheny]

Wow, I quit lab work when I got hurt but I've spent a lot of years in a micro lab, hadn't even considered this. Actually any medical type place will wind up with bodily fluids on the floor. Everything that hits the floor eventually finds its way to our hands. Ewwww.

You're right, I don't think there would be any way.

Have an extra chair (dirty) that you leave there at work, transfer to a bench or something to strip down, then into your clean chair to get dressed? Huge hassle, guaranteed contamination.

[Katja]

I've done it, in a ISO Class 4 laminar flow clean room. I provided a second wheelchair (in fact, it's the wheelchair you've got now!) which is cleaned to the same specs that carts and other equipment are cleaned. Cushion is cleaned and bagged in plastic. Tire surfaces are taped. I get assistance garbing so that I don't contaminate already clean surfaces. Since the airlock is big enough to get all sorts of equipment through, it's big enough for the wheelchair.

It's a pain in the ass, but it's doable. Note that we're not talking about a sterile room, we're talking about a controlled level of contamination.

[Jeannette]

So the controlled clean rooms are doable then, although you probably wouldn't want to do that on a daily basis, eh? How long did it take you to get in and out every time?

[Katja]

We got it down to about 15 or 20 minutes, I guess. Getting out is a lot faster because you can strip the bunny suit off any old way - getting dressed there's a very specific order you put the stuff on in.

Funny, that's probably one of the few situations where I didn't get all shirty about being completely independent. The cleanrom techs were always ready and willing to help, and it was a team effort.

[ChuckFoss]

Good question!