#4 in a series

Practicing proper infection control procedures is the responsibility of every student, staff and faculty member with clinical responsibilities. With the fast-paced nature of the clinical environment, it is sometimes easy to overlook basic infection control policies. To help raise awareness about these issues, we've created this series of infection control reminders and pointers. For questions about infection control policies or more information, contact the School of Dentistry's Director of Health and Safety, Dr. Molly Newlon at: newlonm@dentistry.ucsf.edu.

• Sterilizers should be spore-tested weekly. If the spore test fails, the sterilizer must be taken out of service immediately and serviced by the manufacturer before reuse. All items must be retrieved and re-sterilized in a different sterilizer.
  
  
  

• The term, "Tuberculocidal" means that the highly resistant M.tuberculosis var. bovis is inactivated. Inactivation of this organism implies consistent inactivation of less-resistant microbial families (such as bacteria, fungi and viruses).
  
  
  

Best regards,

Charles N. Bertolami, DDS, DMedSc

Dean