How do doctors accommodate patients who are allergic to latex? Isn’t that what the gloves are made of?
They accomodate it by not using any latex products with that patient. (You can get non-latex gloves these days, so that’s not as big a problem as you might think.)
They have gloves made of an alternate material (a form of plastic, I believe). I know a doc with a latex alergy,and he uses these.
Gloves are made in a variety of other materials. The most popular non-latex choice in hospitals and emergency services is nitrile, which I like more because it doesn’t pull at the hairs on my hand as much (I used to be on a volunteer fire/ambulance crew.) There was also a doctor at the hospital I worked at who had a latex allergy, so he had nitrile gloves in his endoscopy suite.
It’s actually becoming more common to go completely latex free. Where I work, all our ambulances are latex free. In addition, healthcare providers are more likely to have a latex allergy than the general public:
From here
St. Urho
Paramedic
we have a latex free cart filled with stuff for such patients. Personally, I still prefer latex gloves for their ease of use and tactile sensation, at least compared to the nitrile I’ve tried. YMMV.