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Debbie,

Congratulations! I am bestowing my humble award on your site--you deserve it! It gives me great pleasure that the very first recipient of this new award is so deserving of the gold!

Specifically, your site is a fantastic resource on the subject of Hepatitis, is elegantly designed, and has very smooth navigation. This is the best presentation of the material I've seen, and as frightening as the subject is, more people may read about it on a site like yours because of the quality of presentation. The fact that sadly, you actually have HCV, further lends credibility to the information and you are to be commended for your efforts to inform and educate people about the dangers of this dread disease.

Thanks for asking me to review your site. I am honored to have you apply for my award! Your scoring broke down like this:
Content 45/50
Design 20/20
Navigation 20/20
Subjective 10/10
Total 95/100


On a personal note, I was fascinated with the recounting of the lab technician & gloves issue. As a practicing RN, I can tell you that I NEVER perform invasive procedures without gloves, but have seen many lab techs, etc. do so. I have also seen them go from room-to-room wearing the same pair of gloves, which is really gross. I am also now a clinical instructor for first semester nursing students, some of whom have prior patient care experience as various kinds of techs, so they may have similar bad habits. My way of trying to squash this is to tell them "if it's clean enough for you to lick it, that you can touch it without protective devices" (such as gloves, gowns, masks, whatever is protocol). This grosses them out sufficiently to get the message across. The other thing I do is have them initially palpate for veins with gloves on, so they can't complain later about not being able to find the vein again because of gloves. If students never even try to find one without gloves on, they won't feel hampered when trying to puncture the vein, and they'll "teach" their fingers to be more sensitive with gloves (this is what I do myself to start IVs, draw blood, etc., and it works). In any event, in the US it's a whopping $10-25,000 fine if state/federal inspecting agencies catch someone doing these procedures without gloves on. This makes it everyone's responsibility to adhere to the protocol, as if it weren't enough to want to protect themselves and the patients!

I wish you well, and hope your health status remains positive!

Sincerely,
Lisa Chestnut