Odd rituals at work

[abbaking]

I have an odd ritual when I come on duty. First, I wash my hands. Then I wipe down my workstation with Sani-Wipes - this includes the telephone, keyboard, chair, call-light speaker, and the soap dispenser. Finally, I place a folded bath-towel on the chair so my butt won't be touching the leather seat itself.

Odd yes - But we all have our own methods for being control freaks - My own is just the avoidance of germs.

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

Count me as one who msut tidy everything up before I can start. When I go into a patient's room, I must straighten out their monitoring cables and those with multiple IV lines must be untangled and labelled.

[flightnursetaylor]

While I am a drip rearranger and a disinfector also, I HATED it when my relief nurse would be doing this while I was trying to give her a bedside report. I felt like she wasn't listening to a word I said and she always acted like each patient bay was completely trashed and she couldn't do anything unless she cleaned the mess up. (It wasn't messy, she re arranged stuff to where SHE thought it should be)

[abbaking]

Side-Note: The towel on the chair is for 2 reasons. 1: The main reason is because (prepare yourself) I don't like a sweaty butt - I am a big boy and leather, thin scrubs, and being hot - You see the picture and its not a pretty one! So, the towel is there to absorb any wetness and the prevent me from getting more sweaty. 2: the other minor reason for the towel on the chair in for germs - but its MINOR -

[HollyHobby]

I'm not anal retentive by nature, but I do have my rituals. From my observations over the years, I believe that every nurse has his/her own thing. In my case, I always arrive at work ten minutes early. Put my stuff in the breakroom. Go to the restroom, put my hair up, and wash my hands. I must always do these things in this order. There are certain things I keep in the left pocket of my scrub top and other things I keep in my right.

I find it fascinating to see what other nurses do in my ICU. One nurse really can't concentrate until the trash can is in a certain location in each patient's room. Some nurses have to place a clean towel on the bedside table, then organize supplies on top of it. Some nurses have elaborate highlighter-pen rituals. There are the drip-detanglers, of course, who are closely related to the drip-labelers. (I label my drips too, but here I'm talking about people who put dozens of little sticky notes all OVER the tubing and IV pumps, sometimes color-coded.)

Once you've worked with the same group of people long enough, you can just walk into a patient's room and think, "Ahhh, X has been here". You can also anticipate what questions that person is going to ask during report and give the answer before they get a chance, which always causes a startled reaction. ("The central line was inserted on the 3rd, so the caps are due to be changed on the 10th", for the nurse who is obsessed with central-line-cap-changing.)

I also arrange my charts/paperwork carefully on my desk, so that each is in order from left to right, and in perfect alignment. If someone comes along and rearranges or breaks the symmetry, I get a little freaked out.

I think it all comes down to control. We work in an environment where anything can happen at any time, and often the consequences are matters of life and death. Taking a few minutes to "nest", to put things in a particular order, gives each of us a little sense of power. Sometimes I sort of think to myself, "Okay, I've got my pockets and my desk space organized, so bring it on!"

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

I think this is borderline OCD-type behavior. Do you have a lot of anxiety? Ever thought about seeing a psychiatrist? Just something to think about.

No, it's not OCD, it's smart and a good part of infection control as well as promoted by our facility.

I work in the NICU and wipe down all of my surfaces, including the charts, my keyboard, the screens, pumps, etc at the beginning and the end of my shift.