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Why would your face be covered during surgery?

I recently had hand surgery and woke up with a sheet over my face while still in the operating room. Is this normal procedure?

Public Comments

1. because the doctor need to keep his dinner down...
2. So the lights don't wake you up .. or they did something.
3. well, they would cover your face to keep things out of your face (say, some blood splashes) and keep it dark to help you stay under the anesthesia...Sometimes they tape your eyes shut but I know I wouldn't want tape pulling my eyelashes off...i'd rather have a sheet
4. in case you wake up in the middle of surgery so you won't FREAK out!! no, seriously, they just always do that..
5. this is normal. when u look at pain while u r getting the pain it hurts even more
6. Maybe they thought you were a gonner.
7. In case you wake up they do not want you to be traumatized by looking at your operation. Sometimes they tape your eyes shut instead. You don't have to be fully awake to take in what you are seeing either!
8. It's the sterile barrier drape between anesthesia area and the surgical field. totally normal.
9. I think it's so that the doctor can sort of remove himself from the fact that he is operating on a person- if he can't see your face, then no emotions get involved and it can be kept clinical. Hope that makes sense!
10. they cover your face in surgery because they don't want any thing distracting them when focused on what they are there for and to keep from getting your own blood on your face.
11. Jeez, how ugly are you???
12. Just incase you woke up :) i dont really see the need for all the rude answers
13. There shouldn't have been a sheet over your face. Maybe it was a drape. During surgery, the field (area the dr works in) must be sterile (free of any germs or anything dirty / not pure). This is because the dr actually uses your body to lay tools on and to touch to brace themselves for whatever they may be doing. You don't want the doctor to touch your skin, which naturally harbors germs, then touch an open surgical wound. That would cause a deadly infection for sure. Therefore, they make a "sterile field" by covering you with all these sterile drapes / small sheets. This way anything they bump into or touch is germ free, decreasing your chance of infection. The only part of your body left out in the open is the part that will be operated on. Even the supplies are sterile and are prepared and wrapped a certain way. The doctors wear sterile gowns and sterile gloves. Everyone in the room is dressed in sterile gowns and gloves in case they need to hand the dr a sterile tool or in case they have to help brace the body. It's all to protect you.