02/28/2018    Name Withheld

RE: How Often to Change Benz-All Instrument Disinfectant Solution (Janet McCormick, MS)

Kudos to Ms. McCormick for bringing this issue to
light regarding continued use of chemicals to
"disinfect" podiatry instruments. From what I
recall, most of those chemicals only sterilize an
instrument after 6-8 hours or more of being
immersed. Since most podiatry offices are turning
over a patient every 15-30 minutes there is
serious potential for spread of onychomycosis,
MRSA, Hep C, etc. from patient to patient if
these chemicals are utilized.

There will be others that disagree, but there is
no excuse to not have an autoclave and sterilize
every instrument between patient use! Autoclaves
are not that expensive and we have advanced
beyond chiropody. Those that are still using
chemicals are no better than some of the pedicure
salons that we hear about spreading infections
with dirty instruments.

Having graduated from podiatry school little more
than 10 years ago I am embarrassed to say that my
instruments as a student never saw the inside of
an autoclave. They spent a brief time, 15-30
minutes in a liquid chemical tray between
patients and that was it. Heck, we were only
given a single (supposedly safer and expensive)
special scalpel blade for callus trimming which
was typically reused dozens of times on patients.
This is so wrong on many levels. I would hope
that this practice has been abandoned by all the
podiatry schools, but my guess is that it still
occurs.

Therein lies the problem - that we as students
are taught it is okay to do this. I wonder if
dentists/dental schools "clean" their instruments
in this way? If the general public knew about
this and the untold thousands of people that have
potentially been exposed to or even contracted
disease from dirty podiatry instruments cleaned
with a chemical solution there would be an
outcry.

Ask yourself this, "Would you allow your nails to
be trimmed by an instrument, placed in one of
these chemicals for 5-10 minutes, that had just
been used on a HIV patient with onychomycosis and
tiny micro-bleed occurred to that patient and
you?"

Name Withheld

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