Engagement/Wedding Bands

Nurses General Nursing

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  • Specializes in Endocrinology, hopefully.

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Is it really that important to show off at work ? If it's just a matter of signifying your status a plain band should suffice. I'd rather come home everyday and find my ring clean, safe, and sound than to wear it and bring home bugs to my family or lose it in a glove. BTW my scrubs and shoes go in a bin in the garage NOT into the house.

On the other side of the coin, my jeweler told me that constant use of hand sanitizers can actually erode the metal, My engagement setting was my mothers; it is almost 80 years old. I don't want to ruin it. I am not wearing it to work now, but am thinking of getting a cheap titanium band for work. I just feel too naked not wearing a wedding band.

Where I work, we can wear whatever, but the germ thing, nope.

That is exactly what was happening to me. Pitting = damage to the metal.

Is it really that important to show off at work ? If it's just a matter of signifying your status a plain band should suffice. I'd rather come home everyday and find my ring clean, safe, and sound than to wear it and bring home bugs to my family or lose it in a glove. BTW my scrubs and shoes go in a bin in the garage NOT into the house.

My shoes stay at work. I don't even bring them home. And if I decide to dump them, I dump them at work. I know not everyone can leave their shoes at work, though.

When I was a civilian, one of the RNs' dogs got c-diff - cx'd by the vet and everything. There's only one place he could've gotten that. She started leaving her shoes in her garage after that.

pecanpies

82 Posts

I bought a cheap stainless steel band solely for work. It was about $35 at a local jewelry store. If it gets damaged or lost, no big deal - I'm only out $35. I have a beautiful wedding ring (in my opinion!) and band that I don't want damaged or lost through the one of the many hazards of nursing.

CT Pixie, BSN, RN

3,723 Posts

My plain gold wedding band is the only ring I wear to work.

One several occasions I fogot to remove my engagement ring and went to work with it on. Now I make a point to do a ring check before I leave for work for several reasons. Apart from the nasty nasties that are just dying for a nice place to hide and the chance of puncturing my glove and possibly scratching a patient with it (high setting with a pear shaped diamond) I nearly lost the ring to the garbage on several occasions.

I was lucky enough to notice before leaving the rooms that the ring was not on. Guess who had to go through the garbage and look through the gloves to find the ring.

My facility has no policy on rings. However, all the nurses tend to stick with the plain smooth wedding ring. Newly engaged will tend to wear it in a few times and then stop. Working in LTC w/patients with skin that tears if you look at it too long, a nice little scratch from a prong can happen easily. The guilt for hurting a resident is bad enough, but the added paperwork for a skin tear is enough for most to say its not worth it to wear the bling ;)

I have platinum and white gold rings. (I lived in Saudi Arabia for quite a while, where jewelry is stupid cheap.)

White gold isn't 'white' per se, it's generally plated with rhodium to make it white (when the rhodium wears off, and it does over time, the ring begins to turn yellow and you either deal with it or get it re-rhodium plated, which costs about $35 a pop - the plating should last many years before that's necessary). Purell strips rhodium off of rings super fast, and it etched my platinum one - fortunately I saw what was happening before it got too bad, and I had the ring buffed out before it became noticeable. It tore up a sterling ring of mine so bad that it turned it black. Permanently.

In short, even without the nasties, the soaps and hand things we use on a daily basis are not jewelry friendly.

I noticed the damage to my "white gold" ring as well. I've just stopped wearing it. The downside is that I've been asked out ( which I'll admit being a pregnant married lady boosted my ego a bit ;))

Specializes in School nursing.

I got engaged while in nursing school; it was princess cut simple stone, nothing fancy, with a white gold band. I tried gloving with it and it got caught a lot at first; six months of clinical later and the hand sanitizer had stripped the rhodium off an an area on the back (luckily small enough for only me to notice and an easy fix). After that, I would remove my ring and place it on the chain around my neck that I wore daily under my scrubs - it would go back on my hand after clinical.

I work in a school now, and do wear my rings to work, but find myself still removing them and putting them on my chain most of the time.

CyndleT319

37 Posts

I am torn about this topic. I am getting engaged soon and want to wear my ring so bad! But I know the risks and it grosses me out! I will still be in school for a while, so I'll probably wear them there, but as soon as I'm in clinicals I plan on wearing mine on a chain. I have a simple band promise ring I might wear... but still. Gross.:barf02:

DeeAngel

830 Posts

I honestly think it's a good idea to leave engagement rings at home and just wear a band to work. One of my instructors lost a very large (2-3 carat) diamond from her engagement ring while at work in the ICU. They searched everywhere and the stone was never found. Her heart was still broken about it 20 years later.....

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