New York ? Looks like doctors aren’t the only ones who should scrub before surgery. Bathing patients with an antiseptic and squirting medicated ointment up their noses dramatically cut the rate of dangerous staph infections afterward, researchers found.

A second study found the antiseptic did a better job of preventing infections than the reddish-brown iodine solution that’s been used for decades to swab the skin before an operation.

Infections are a vexing problem for hospitals. Some 30 million surgical procedures are done each year, and up to a half million Americans develop surgical-site infections, mostly from staph bacteria.

While attention has been focused on ways to stop health care workers from spreading bugs, patients can also contaminate themselves with the germs they harbor in their noses or on their skin.

“A lot of people think it’s all from the outside world, but these are your own germs,” said Dr. Robert Weinstein, an infectious disease expert at Cook County’s Stroger Hospital in Chicago.