I have been asked why doctors bring phones with bacteria into the operating room when it is sterile. Wouldn’t this cause infection in the surgery? Wouldn’t it affect the outcome of the surgery? First of all, the sterility of the operating room is only relatively sterile, not completely sterile. For example, the number of dust particles greater than or equal to 0.5μm in a Class 100 operating room is greater than 350 particles/m3 (0.35 particles/L) to less than or equal to 3500 particles/m3 (3.5 particles/L), and the number of dust particles greater than or equal to 5μm is 0. The number of dust particles of 0.5μm per cubic foot of air in a Class 1000 operating room is 1000 or 35 particles per liter of air. The standard for a Class 10,000 laminar flow operating room is 10,000 particles of 0.5μm per cubic foot of air or 350 particles per liter of air. Overall, the smaller the number of dust and bacteria in a given volume, the more sterile the operating room is. But does this mean that the operating room is truly sterile from the inside out? Of course not. In the case of a doctor, just because he or she changed slippers and gowns before surgery, cleaned his or her hands before entering the operating room, and put on sterile gloves to achieve sterility in the surgical field, does not mean that the surgical environment is completely sterile. I also used to imagine that if the doctor sterilization is as simple as swimming, the doctor jumped into the sterilized water and swam around, the whole body is clean, and there is a sterile light in the operating room that can be 100% sterilized, so you can take whatever you want after shining, so you don’t have to be so restrained. But is it possible to achieve that now? Obviously not. So why would a doctor bring a cell phone into the operating room? Is it possible to take a break during surgery to watch short videos? Of course, this is also impossible. Doctors bring cell phones into the operating room for documentation purposes. The doctor will ask the nurse to take pictures of the important points of the operation, and every important step is saved and kept on file. If there is a problem three months or six months after the surgery, such as where the discomfort or what position is not normal, the doctor does not always remember how the operation was performed. But once you look at the photos, the doctor will understand everything, and the entire surgery plan and operation will be clear at a glance, which is more accurate for determining the state of the patient. For cosmetic surgery, another concern is the ghost doctor. Will there be a change of doctor during the operation? The photographic record is also helpful to clarify the doctor operating during the surgery and to avoid misunderstanding with the patient. Of course, the intraoperative photo record is not operated by the doctor, but by the traveling nurse who helps to take photos using the doctor’s cell phone. The doctor will not have access to the phone and there will be no contamination of the surgical field, which you can rest assured.