Before donning gown and gloves, which step should be performed?

Before donning gown and gloves, which step should be performed?

• A. Don gloves
• B. Hand wash
• C. Don gown
• D. Don shoe covers

Answer: (B)

Begin with hand hygiene. Cleaning your hands first removes transient microorganisms and lowers the microbial load, creating a clean baseline before handling any PPE. This step helps prevent contaminating the gown and gloves as you don them, since dirty hands could transfer microbes to sterile surfaces. After hands are clean and dry, you would don the gown and then the gloves using sterile technique. Shoe covers aren’t part of this immediate sequence in standard PPE donning routines.

Begin with hand hygiene. Cleaning your hands first removes transient microorganisms and lowers the microbial load, creating a clean baseline before handling any PPE. This step helps prevent contaminating the gown and gloves as you don them, since dirty hands could transfer microbes to sterile surfaces. After hands are clean and dry, you would don the gown and then the gloves using sterile technique. Shoe covers aren’t part of this immediate sequence in standard PPE donning routines.