Can nurses have artifical nails?

NicuGal, MSN, RN · Mar 30, 2014

No artificial nails or gel manicures where I work. And we ask moms with artificial nails to remove them or they have to wear gloves. We had an MRSA breakout a few years back and every one of those kid's moms had artificial nails. ID cultured them and BINGO. If you are caught with artificial you are sent home without pay.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 30, 2014

prnqday said:
Can nurses have fake nails? The answer is No. Do they wear fake nails anyway? The answer is yes. Most of the nurses and physicians I work with wear fake nails. None of them have been fired on written up. If my job fired all that wore fake nails we wouldn't hardly have any staff.

They may not have been fired, but you wouldn't know if they've been written up or not unless they chose to tell you about it. Management cannot speak about the disciplinary process.

klone, MSN, RN · Mar 30, 2014

Presumably they're still wearing them - which would suggest they haven't been disciplined.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Mar 30, 2014

mama.RN said:
My point was that having long nails of any kind, meaning real or artificial, can be a bad idea. This was assuming that all artificial nails were long. As I've never had artificial nails, I'd never realized that anyone would actually ever bother to have short, artificially-covered nails.

I think you'd be surprised, then! I totally get what you're saying, but there are many who wear their gel/acrylic covered nails short so as to not draw attention, or not interfere with their work. Why they wear the artificial covering, then? So that they don't peel, split, crack, or bleed. I do agree with the infection control problem of wearing them, no argument, but I have heard (on this message board, actually) from those who wear them because if they didn't, they'd have open cuts/cracks and bloody edges. ALSO an infection-control problem. Just saying it's probably a bigger issue than we'd think, if we just look for the Dragon Lady red nails.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 30, 2014

klone said:
Presumably they're still wearing them - which would suggest they haven't been disciplined.

Or that they haven't been disciplined enough to make them want to give up the nails. I know CNAs (two of them) who went all the way to the brink of termination before giving up the danged nails!

amygarside · Mar 30, 2014

You'll just get used to it.

ptrjms23 · Mar 30, 2014

On their feet.

BSNbeauty, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2014

Ruby Vee said:
They may not have been fired, but you wouldn't know if they've been written up or not unless they chose to tell you about it. Management cannot speak about the disciplinary process.

You're right I don't know anything for sure, however I'm willing to bet my whole pay check that my job does not strictly enforce the artificial nail policy. They'd be writing people up all day if they did. Unfortunately, it is what it is.

hurleygirli1 · Mar 31, 2014

Do you really want your artificial nail to pop through a glove while providing patient care (ahem....placing a rectal tube? Think about it

TheGooch · Mar 31, 2014

On their feet.

Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2014

Gooch, that is really really icky! Yuck. How does she sleep at night without stabbing herself?

akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P · Mar 31, 2014

Sure, nurses and other healthcare providers can have artificial nails and the like. That's not to say that they should have them. In fact, it's pretty darned clear that they shouldn't have them. If a nurse or other healthcare provider wants to have those nails, fine, they can have them... but they should also be fully and completely aware that those nails pose a risk to their patients and their job. All it takes is one "bad" case that's traced to a nurse wearing artificial or otherwise decorated nails and I can almost guarantee that a facility will suddenly become very strict about enforcing their "nail" policies and they'll find someone to make an example of.