No two of our orthopedic skin preps were the same. I know this because I observed the skin prep practices of our orthopedic surgery teams as part of a project to standardize our prepping practices. We'd scrub some patients before painting, but not all. Sometimes we'd wear gloves and use positioning devices and drapes, sometimes not. We'd use betadine on one patient, alcohol and iodine povacrylex on the next. Even who performed the prep varied, with the circulator, attending, scrub tech and fellow each taking a turn.