A study recently published in the American Journal of Infection Control is a bit disconcerting. Eighty-five medical student from a German medical school answered an anonymous questionnaire. Only 21% of all respondents marked all of the indications for hand hygiene correctly. Respondents guessed that average physician compliance with hand hygiene was 52% (not far off the mark). In the opinion of the students, compliance with hand hygiene decreases with increase in physician rank.
It appears that we lack hand hygiene role models.
