Here are the microbes you can pick up at the hospital — and those you leave behind

I don’t like going to hospitals. I’m always wondering about what kind of bacteria are floating around and what pathogens I’m going to pick up. Well, my abstract fears have just gotten a little bit more real. A new study shows what kinds of organisms you encounter in hospitals — and how patients and the hospital rooms they’re in exchange these organisms with one another.

Researchers took thousands of samples from a hospital in Chicago for two months before it opened and for 10 months afterward. They swabbed floors, bedrails, pagers, and cellphones, as well as patients’ noses, hands, and armpits. They saw that the microbes changed dramatically after the hospital became operational. Patients picked up organisms already present in their...

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