Rituals in the Hospital

Rituals In The Hospital “Ritual has been defined as standardized ceremonies in which expressive, symbolic, mystical, sacred, and nonrational behavior predominates over practical, technical, secular, rational, and scientific behavior, although anthropologists have acknowledged that rational, technical acts may occur as part of ritual behavior (Katz, Pearl).” Rituals are performed for various reasons, not only in religious situations. The article “Ritual in the Operating Room” discusses both ritual and science in one technical context, the hospital …

…them into their gown and sterile gloves. In the operating room objects and people are classified as sterile or nonsterile. Nonsterile objects are clean, dirty, or contaminated. No part of the nurse or the anesthesiologist is sterile. Certain parts of the surgeon and the scrub nurse are classified as sterile. If a part of the surgeon becomes contaminated there is a process of scrubbing again and ridding of the contaminated objects to become sterile again.