Should nurses with long hair be required to wear it up?

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Do you think this should be a requirement for doing bedside care?

Just wondering what your thoughts were on this.....

Personally, I always wear my long hair up whenever I am doing pt care. Not because I am required to, I just don't want it getting in the way, etc.

Does anyone work for a facility that requires this?

Specializes in ICU, MedSurg, Medical Telemetry.

Personally, I have really thick, long curly/wavy hair. Headband would do NOTHING to hold back the monster of fuzz from attacking people. I have to wear it back if I don't want my pt's to eat hair. :clown:

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Tele.
I always wear my hair up. It's funny you asked because I also wear my hair up while cooking. I didn't once while making a shrimp dip. Just forgot but my hubby went to dip and got a huge knot of my hair that ended up there! Needless to say the whole dip went into the garbage and I'm now fanatical about it! Ewwwww!!!!!!!

Funny, the reason I posted this question is having been in the restaurant business for ten years prior to nursing I am fanatical about wearing it up as well, whether it be during pt care or cooking.

I see many nurses who have quite long hair who don't wear it up/back or anything, and I was just wondering what their rationale was for this.

I agree with many of the previous posters that wearing your long hair down is asking for something unwanted to end up somewhere unintended.

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Up and out of the way.

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Specializes in Hospice & Palliative Care, Oncology, M/S.

I'm still in nursing school, but we're required to wear our hair up if it's long, and to have short nails. Light or clear polish is acceptable as long as it's not chipped. (I don't wear polish to the hospital, though.)

My hair is bum-length and there is no way I would want it flopping about... I had a near miss one time when I worked with dementia patients, plus it was too easy to grab. I wear it up in a bun now, no exceptions.

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Specializes in LTC/Behavioral/ Hospice.

Yes, we are required to wear long hair back and no false fingernails. I wear my hair short now, but always wore it back when it was long and keep my fingernails trimmed.

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Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.

I have shoulder length hair and I can't stand to have hair in my face and work. So I always have it tied back. I don't know what the policy is but every nurse I work with does the same thing. Otherwise it is too messy. Plus, we have a lot of isolation patients and having your hair down is just not good with all these people in isolation. Plus, we are all so old on my floor that none of us care about making a fashion statement any more.

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Specializes in critical care, PACU.

I have long hair and I mostly wear it up, but to answer leslie's question, I sometimes get bored out of my mind with my hair and its nice to have it down and pinned back and still keeps my hair out of the way. I never have it just down. I always at the very least have it pinned away from my face or with a headband.

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Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..

From what I've seen here, most places have in their dress code, hair up or pulled back, short neatly trimmed nails, no acrylics. All of the above for infection control reasons. Also sometimes see "no dangling earrings" which is a safety issue (not wanting patients to pull on them, yeaouch!)

But - I see many nurses disregarding the dress code - and I haven't seen any enforcement. On occasion a realllly bad hygiene issue will be addressed, but that is it...

I for one had my hair dragging in some poo one day and thought, I wonder what else I've dragged it through, so, I pinned it up or got it short. That really grossed me out... not to mention my transmitting anything I might have dragged it through to another patient... got to THINK!

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Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.

I always wear mine up at work.

But the other day, I was in a work related class. During the class, we had a unexpected review of ACLS and how to demonstrate compressions over 3 minutes- had to have at least 100 correct compressions per minute.

I had 125/min - but my hair was seriously wrecked at the end and definitely got in the way. I now know that I have no business working with my hair down.

Mine is also only shoulder length.

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I can't imagine risking having long hair down. There's all kinds of nasty stuff it could get dragged in, not to mention grabbed by patients.

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Hair should be pulled back. My mother was hospitalized and had the cutest nurse, with a head of long curly hair, that was either in her face, mom's face or being brushed back by her "sterile" gloved hands! Whne mom suddenly started to wheeze and stated that her file showed she was highly allergic to chemicals found in hair products, the cute little nurse with the long curly hair, knotted it up!

Found out that at this metro hospital, it was not required.

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even wearing a (long) pony tail is a nuisance.

i've had to end up tucking it in itself.

now i twist and clip...5 seconds and very secure.

leslie

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