Do you wear your white shoes on the street?

[Jaysie1]

Strange question from a first semester nursing student (aka: me). Do you wear your all-white nursing shoes out on the street or change into them when you get to school/work?

I have a pretty good walk through a busy city from the train stop to campus. Will my new white shoes be filthy? Are dirty soles allowed in the hospital?

Thanks for weighing in!

:redbeathe

[elkpark]

In nursing school, I lived in an apartment two blocks from the hospital, and walked to class and clinical each day. On clinical days, I walked in my uniform, inc. shoes. Most areas of hospitals don't care about the soles of your shoes -- everyone else there has dirty shoe soles, too. In areas where it does matter, you wear shoe covers as a regular routine, so it's just not an issue. Although I had some nursing instructors who were v. persnickety about whether our shoes were clean and polished for clinical, even those individuals never took an interest in the shoe soles. I've never heard anyone mention carrying their shoes to work, or keeping their shoes at work, and wearing different shoes to go to and from.

If you, personally, are worried about your shoes getting dirty, you're certainly free to wear something else and carry the shoes with you. But hospitals are among the dirtiest places around (in terms of organisms -- not necessarily dirt you can see) -- the soles of your shoes will get just as dirty during clinical as they are likely to get getting to clinical (assuming you don't wade through any mud puddles or anything like that!)

Good luck with your studies!

[Jaysie1]

Thanks so much for the great advice and well wishes! First day of labs tomorrow...so excited! :yelclap: