How to gown and glove for surgery
Other platforms explain it with text and video. In Making Synapses you practice it on the patient.
Sterile gowning and gloving keep the surgical field free of germs. It is done right after the surgical hand scrub.
Step by step
Pick up the gown
Lift the folded gown from the sterile field by the inside, touching only the inside. [1]
Put arms in the sleeves
Let the gown unfold and slide your arms in, keeping hands inside the cuffs. [1]
Have it tied
A circulating nurse ties the back without touching the front. [1]
Closed gloving
Use the gown sleeves to pull on sterile gloves without bare hands touching them. [1]
Turn the gown
Hand the tag to a sterile team member or use the card so the back wrap closes. [1]
Keep hands in the zone
Keep hands between chest and waist, in front. Never fold arms into the armpits. [2]
Common errors
- Touching the outside of the gown with bare hands.
- Dropping hands below the waist.
- Not changing a glove after a break in sterility.
Practice it in Making Synapses
In Making Synapses you do this on the patient, not on paper: every step goes on the checklist with a score, and in Teach mode Blocky tells you what comes next.
Making Synapses cases that train this skill
- Pain after abdominal surgery
- Deep vein thrombosis
- Opioid withdrawal after surgery
- Lymphedema after mastectomy
- Compartment syndrome under a cast
- Spine surgery with saturated dressing
14 Making Synapses cases train this skill: open the case library
Sources
- Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College) (CC BY 4.0)
- CDC, Guideline for Isolation Precautions (2007) and PPE sequence
Facts and steps follow CDC, Guideline for Isolation Precautions (2007) and PPE sequence. Making Synapses is not affiliated with these organizations. Updated: 2026-10-11.