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Hand washing

It's like a birthday party every time you go to the bathroom!

I spend what feels like 10 hours a week asking my daughter if she wiped, flushed and washed after using the bathroom.  That combined with a newsletter I got about "the guys who don't wash their hands" made me think this would be good to talk about.

The recent data shows that only half of men use soap when they wash their hands and 1 in 8 doesn't wash them at all.  That's way lower than women (but I don't know if anyone is surprised by that).

One of my old mentors told me that if you're a clinic doctor, something like 80% of your patients are going to be your gender.  I just ran the numbers and it's 79.68% for me right now.  So I'm sending this to about 1000 people who aren't using soap when they wash their hands, statistically.

Hand washing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of a lot of disease, especially gastrointestinal bugs you don't want to get and to again quote an old mentor of mine from the infectious disease world, "the whole world is covered in a fine layer of feces."  I know, it's gross.  Hence the hand washing.

Hand washing has contributed to some of the major gains we've made as a species in our longevity.

How to do it?  Water, soap, and wash for about as long as it takes to hum or sing "happy birthday".  It's illustrated quite well by Larry David in this movie.

Hand sanitizers are good, but they don't get everything and they aren't as effective if you have any visible dirt or grease on your hands.  Also, hand washing can be a good time to take a brief break and take a deep breath to relax and reset your mind. 

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