Western Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC) RMA-AMT Module 3 Practice Test

Reaching over a sterile field risks contaminating it. When you cross above the boundary, anything from your arms, gloves, or sleeves can drop microbes or moisture into the sterile area, compromising sterility and increasing infection risk. The safe, recommended approach is to never reach over the sterile field; keep your hands and arms outside the sterile zone and have items placed from the edge, or passed by an assistant, or retrieved with long instruments that don’t cross over the field. Sterile gloves are used to maintain sterility, not to justify crossing over. So, the best practice is to avoid reaching over the sterile field entirely.