[nurseleigh]

Bottom line is. . . it doesn't matter what you, me, or anyone else thinks on the issue.

If your place of employment has a policy against them, then you can't wear them. It's that simple.

Traci

[Love-A-Nurse]

I wonder how some can work in them when they are too long. Injury to patients and others and infection control issues should clue one to wear a shorter length be it fake or real nails.

[luvbeinganurse]

I wear acrylic nails. I am in private homecare. Most of what I do are nursing admissions and assessment, which sometimes take up to 2 hours of paperwork in the home. I keep the nails very short, only as long as the top of my fingers, wash my hands or use alcohol hand wash CONSTANTLY, and paint them usually an opaque light color (pink or white). I wear them because my patients have to sit there for a couple hours looking at me write, observing my hands.

Unfortunately, I am a nail biter when my nerves are bad (old habits die hard) and my nails are very weak and break very easily. I don't put the acrylic ones in my mouth. I also do a lot of venipunctures, but the nails are very short and I have never had a problem with them falling off or making holes in gloves. In fact, even taking them off is just short of excruciating torture, IMO, so they are on there to stay.

My hospital doesn't have a policy against wearing them, but if I were working on the floor, I doubt if I would.

[Gator,SN]

Actually I wanted my nails to be long and pretty for graduation so I let them grow. I have stong natural nails. 2 weeks ago I found a paper that I wrote the first week of school about "what professionalism means to me" and decided to cut them. Before when everything was new and exciting I had an expectation that I wanted to live up to. Over the last 2 years I may have lowered my standards to fit what I could get away with in this area. It was an eye opener.
For people that have cracked nails it is probably much safer to get the tips but for the rest, its probably not something we'd find acceptable from our own nurse if we were in the hospital. JMO
Gator

[SmilingBluEyes]

Originally posted by mark_LD_RN
no they are NOT ok! our hospital does not allow them. recently had a lot of postpartum infections at one hospital i work at it was traced back to one nurse who was wearing fake nails
your patients deserve better do not compromise their care with you wearing fake nails

WOW mark that is eye-opening. See, I could NOT live w/myself if I were that nurse the pp infections were linked to. HOW sad and unnecessary......I would feel VERY bad were it ME spreading infection around.

[Hellllllo Nurse]

Originally posted by Gator,SN
Actually I wanted my nails to be long and pretty for graduation so I let them grow. I have stong natural nails. 2 weeks ago I found a paper that I wrote the first week of school about "what professionalism means to me" and decided to cut them. Before when everything was new and exciting I had an expectation that I wanted to live up to. Over the last 2 years I may have lowered my standards to fit what I could get away with in this area. It was an eye opener.
For people that have cracked nails it is probably much safer to get the tips but for the rest, its probably not something we'd find acceptable from our own nurse if we were in the hospital. JMO
Gator

Well said, Gator.

[SC RN]

I started a thread on this subject a few weeks ago ... I've had acrylics (kept short, pink & whites only, clear nail polish, done in an upscale salon) for 16 years. I'm so vain that taking them off seemed like death to me.

But guess what? I read all of the responses here and realized that my vanity was not worth the risks. So I had them taken off two weeks ago. As I type this, my nails are weak (just put another coat of stregthener on) and I hate how they look and how they feel (especially when making beds! ugh!). But I made the best decision and they will get better soon ....

I hope you'll come to a similar realization ... if you knew me, you'd know how hard this was for me, I still have friends who pick up my hands each time they see me and say they wouldn't have believed it without seeing it! Me without nails! It's worth it though. Absolutely.

[gizzy76]

Not to drag this topic out, I just wanted to mention that yeah, there have been the studies of infection due to fake nails. At the same time, it is better to have your fake nails intact than not. By this, I will use the example of when I was in nursing school. I had gel nails that were just covering my own natural nails. They were cut to a "sport" length so that they were no too long. My instructor was okay with me having the nails, she just wanted them shorter b/c she said that all the moms on maternity would shoot me if I went anywhere near their babies with my nails. I obliged to her request and filed them down each week so that they were shorter. Well, once filed, the seal was broken inside thus leaving more entry room for germs and bacteria. Also, my nails were not smooth anymore, they were sharp, very sharp in fact that when scratching my arm, I caused a small scrape. I was more terrified of touching those little babies once they were filed but my instructor couldn't understand that.

[Hellllllo Nurse]

Very interesting thread. Learning and enjoying it.

[NicuGal]

Our hospital policy is no fakes. I wear polish on my nails...usually a very light color or clear.

We have spot checks on nails at our hospital (like management has nothing else to do LOL) and if you are caught with fakes, you are sent home without pay and no pay until you return with them off. End of story.