Back Opening Surgical Gown

U.S. Pat. 3,935,596 discloses a back opening surgical gown with a pair of belt sections secured to a transfer card at waist level of the gown. In the trade a back opening gown, often called a "sterile back" gown means one in which the entire gown is sterile, front and back. However, a surgeon does not touch the back of his gown because it is not good technique to place the hands where they cannot be seen. During donning a nurse can touch the gown back.

As a precautionary measure in surgical gowns, good technique requires that areas of the gown below the waist be considered not sterile and touching the gown below the waist should be avoided. However, for a belt to be functional, one end has to be attached to the gown at waist level.

Another U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,207 discloses a belting system which has a transfer card on only one belt section. The card is on a loose end of the belt section and could droop below the waist line.

Another important feature of surgical gowns is that a critical front area of the gown not be damaged in any way which might increase the chance of contamination transferring through the gown. A needle puncture through a front of the gown specifically to attach a belt section is highly undesirable. Adhesively attaching a belt section to a front of the gown is also undesirable because the tug on the belt section could tear fibers of the gown and possibly weaken it as a bacterial barrier in the critical front area of the gown. Disposable surgical gowns are usually made of nonwoven material and thus are likely to be damaged by an adhesive anchor being torn from the gown.

This invention overcomes the problems described above and provides an improved structure for anchoring all areas of the belting system at the front of the gown in special seamed areas without interferring with the bacterial barrier of such seams. This improved structure also can provide for holding the transfer card and tieable end of a tie strap well above waist level of the gown. The transfer card also has an improved structure which more tightly secures it to a wrapping belt section than to a card retainer on the gown.

FIG. 1 is a front elevational view of the gown immediately prior to donning;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line 2--2 of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 3 is an enlarged sectional view of the improved transfer card.

FIG. 1 shows a back opening surgical gown having a front section 1 secured to a wrap panel 2 along a seam 3. Seam 3 extends vertically to intersect a seam structure 4 which secures sleeve 5 to both the front section 1 and wrap panel 2 of the gown. A second sleeve 6 is also attached to the front section, but no seam silimar to seam 3 is used in the FIG. 1 version. However, if a similar seam is desirable, it could be used, particularly in larger sizes of gowns.

Attached adjacent an outer edge of wrap panel 2 is a first end 7 of wrap belt 8. A second end 9 of wrap belt 8 is secured to a transfer card 10 that is releaseably secured to a tab 11 anchored in seam 12 of sleeve 6.

A tie strap 13 has its first end 14 secured in seam 3. An opposite end portion 15 of tie strap 13 is releaseably held in a loop 16 secured in seam 4 of sleeve 5. It has been found that a better securement of a strap in loop 16 occurs when the tie is inserted into the top of a vertically extending loop.

In FIG. 2, the relationship between end 14 of tie strap 13 and seam 3 is shown. Here wrap panel 2 has a reverse locking fold section 17 that interfits with a reverse locking fold section 18 of front section 1. Double parallel stitchings 19 and 20 secure the front section, wrap panel 2, and tie strap 14 together. Because of the interfitting seam structure, there is little chance of the bacteria barrier at the seam being broken. Preferably, all seams on the gown are of this construction.

The transfer card 10 is divided into a first section 21 that is touched only by the surgeon and a section 22 that is only touched by the nurse doing the belting procedure. Preferably, these are of different colors, such as blue and white, to remind the surgeon and nurse to not touch same portions of the card. The donning nurse can be either a scrub nurse which is sterily gowned or a circulating nurse which is not.

Another feature of the transfer card is the greater holding power it has with respect to the wrap belt than it does with respect to tab 11. This is provided by a greater number of holes 23, 24, and 25 through which end 9 of wrap belt 8 is threaded. Holes 24 and 25 along one side of the card and the third hole 23 form a triangle. It has been found that a triangular arrangement of the holes with all angles less than 90.degree. provides good retaining power for belt 8. Thus, hole 23 is spaced to the right of hole 25 and is longitudinally located between holes 24 and 25. If hole 23 is to the left of hole 25 this can cause the card to grip the belt too tightly. If hole 23 is to the right of hole 24, the belt is held too loosely in the card.

Tab 11 is frictionally retained in a single hole 26. Thus, should the physician grasp the card and move it outwardly away from the gown, tab 11 will always release prior to end 9 of the wrap belt. This greatly reduces the chance of wrap belt 8 prematurely separating from transfer card 10 and dropping to the floor which would require discarding of the gown and a regowning with a new gown.

The card works very well when made of a spun bonded polyolefin, such as Tyvek, marketed by DuPont. This material can be directly printed with the blue color and does not tear at the round holes which have material removed from the holes.

In the foregoing description, a specific example has been used to describe the invention. However, it is understood by those skilled in the art that certain modifications can be made to this example without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.