Imagine a hospital in which all nurses and doctors exhibit professionalism, beauty, splendor, and awe among colleagues and patients. A place where the people taking care of you appear greater than human, larger than life, infallible figures, portraying an image that captures total trust and total confidence from those nearby. What a wonderful place that would be. But alas, we have work ahead of us.
This thread is designed to discuss the importance of impressions in nursing. While many nurses take pride in appearing beautiful or handsome, many walk in to work with a case of the feck-its when it comes to appearance. Unfortunately I feel that nurses are much worse than doctors in this arena. Where I work the majority of female doctors wear their hair down, liberally apply makeup, wear form fitting clothing, and hard soled shoes. They try to appear as beautiful as they can. Likewise, the male doctors come in with tailored clothing that had been ironed, they have well-oiled hair, nice watches, and other things reminiscent of the show "General Hospital."
Meanwhile, in the ICU I've worked in, we've got a female nurse with a buzz cut, one woman wearing a pirate-like black eye patch, nurses with baggy wrinkled scrubs, nurses wearing those ugly skechers shapeups, everyone wearing their hair up or back in a plain boring pony tail instead of letting it flow, men or even women with untrimmed or unneatly trimmed facial hair and people exhibiting other drab or and in my humble opinion, embarrassing features. I feel like no other college educated profession dresses down as much as nurses do and it bothers me.
What do you think of nurses and the images they portray in the professional setting? Use this thread to talk about what you like or dislike, what you think should change and what shouldn't.
I hear that helps prevent booger buildup - just slides right out instead of clinging.
I've got a coworker who always seems to be walking around with bats in the cave. I'm going to have to figure out a polite way to convince her to try it out!
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
My priority at the crack of dawn is sleep.
And that is why the snooze button was invented. Me, I roll out of bed, pee, brush my teeth, get dressed (jeans and t-shirt), brush the worst of the snarls out of my hair, and jump in the car. Wrinkly hospital scrubs, mask, and hat. No need to make any further effort.
And that is why the snooze button was invented. Me, I roll out of bed, pee, brush my teeth, get dressed (jeans and t-shirt), brush the worst of the snarls out of my hair, and jump in the car. Wrinkly hospital scrubs, mask, and hat. No need to make any further effort.
That wouldn't cut it for the temperature challenged nurses among us. The night sweats/freezing cold/sweating-turn-on-the-fan/freezing cold dance that goes on all night pretty much mandates the full shower/shampoo thing in the morning.
When I used to work 12 hour shifts from 0245 to 1515, I would get up at 0115, start the coffee, jump in the shower, get out of the shower, go get the coffee, put my robe on, put my (minimal) makeup on, dry my hair, get dressed, get another cup of coffee, drive 1 mile to work.
I simply MUST SHOWER and DRINK COFFEE in order to wake up.
I simply must shower in order to fall asleep! Caffeine in the morning is a must though. In the car while driving.
I used to shower the night before going to work so that I could eek out every last minute in the morning. That was before peri menopause and the night sweat routine. Gah...
BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP
1,678 Posts
OP, What do YOU wear to work??? Show us a pic, please. I'm anticipating a blinding white smile and long flowing chest hair......