I always find left over supplies in my pocket when I get home...throw away or return?

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

When I get home from clinical I always find a good deal of alcohol wipes, gauze, a flush maybe, and a lancet or two. When I start my day I always load up on stuff so that when I go into a patient's room I'm prepared with all my stuff. And I get caught up in the day and end up taking the left overs home without knowing it. Nurses have said they accidentally take home PRN meds sometimes if they don't give them, but I haven't taken anything like that home. Is it bad to just discard those little left over things like lancets? or should I go back and return them because they're just still sitting there in my room? Today was my last day for the semester, but I'll be going up to the hospital tomorrow cuz some ppl wanna say bye to my instructor. I think I put this in the wrong section, perhaps the general section..

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

Toss them. If you were still in clinicals I'd just stick them in your pocket to use, but don't return them. No one want swipes that have been in your pocket and are all smooshed and grimy.

:)

And congrtulations on making it through!

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

haha thanks. yea all i have left for the semester are my finals in a few weeks. Med/surg wasn't as bad as they said it was =)

[MedicalNerd]

LOL, Yeah I do the same thing. I think I have 2 10ml syringes for SL flushes and 2 Saline locks. It seems to pile up over the semester doesn't it.

I am just going to throw them in my skills kit bag. I have collected a few things over the semester. I have an unused NG tube that I measured on a Pt since she had hers down 12 inches too far. Yeah that was an interesting day!

You can use these things to practice when you feel the need and they are the same thing that the hospital will have to use, so in my eyes it is a win win.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

what you should do is before you leave, stick your hands in your pocket and empty out these left over supplies. these few alcohol wipes, gauze, flushes and lancets add up over time. today it is just one or two. over a year it becomes a whole box. do you have any idea how much a whole box of each of these items costs? as a manager i can tell you. if you throw them away it is wasteful and that is money that is lost and could have been used for something else.

so, learn to take that few minutes before leaving and empty your pockets, or, at the least, bring the stuff back the next time you come in.

[Valerie Salva, BSN, RN]

If the supplies in my pocket are sealed and clean, I put them back in my pockets before I go back to work, and use them.

[Logos]

Yea I don't ever bring anything home. I mean I know you did not mean to steal, but that is what it is. If you "accidentally" walked out of the store with stuff that did not belong to you in your pockets it is stealing. & Taking stuff from work is the same thing. An alcohol wipe I can see, but how do you not know there is a 10ml syringe in your pocket, can't you feel it? & why do you carry lancets in your pocket, those are sharps & I don't ever carry those around with me.

But once it is out of the hospital I would not bring it back into the hospital. I'm kind of a germ a phob and it goes both ways. I don't want hospital germs sitting around my house, and I try not to bring my house germs into the hospital. So if you do have it I would use it at home or pitch it.

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

yea i understand. i returned stuff still in the packaging to my teacher. she said she's seen nurses accidentally take meds home, or entire vials of insulin. i have the big cargo pockets, so nah i didn't feel it til i sat in the car

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

yea i understand. i returned stuff still in the packaging to my teacher. she said she's seen nurses accidentally take meds home, or entire vials of insulin. i have the big cargo pockets, so nah i didn't feel it til i sat in the car

I'm horribly about accidentally taking insulin vials home. Fortunately we always have extra on my floor, and I'll just bring it back in the next time I work.

[CT Pixie, BSN, RN]

Make it a habit of taking EVERYTHING out of your pockets before leaving the floor.

Otherwise, when you are on your own and have that nursing license you might get a call to come back and return XYZ! I had to call the nurse from the previous shift to see if she accidentaly put something in her pocket..I needed it for a treatment and she had it in her pocket. Lucily it wasn't that late and she lives minutes from the facility.

To answer your question, when in school, if I found things in my pockets (gloves, alcohol wipes, etc) I'd toss them in my "clinical bag" and always found uses for them, wipes were used to wipe down my shoes or stethescope, gloves came in handy with cleaning the house :)

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

I recall one clinical instructor telling everyone that if we accidentally took home syringes and the like, that we could be prosecuted for having drug paraphenelia if we had a traffic stop on the way home. Not likely, but I figured with my luck....

That's how I learned to empty my pockets before I left.

[MB37]

We were told the same thing about traffic stops and syringes/needles.