Welcome to your new job! Lesson #1 Lock up your valuables!

Nurse Joey · May 15, 2010

Yeah put those stethoscopes on lockdown too!

ehooper80 · May 15, 2010

my wife started a new job in a hospital on the oncology floor horary! she went through the standard orientation and worked the last two days as her first two 12 hours shifts on the floor. so she had pulled $40 out of the atm wednesday evening. either on her first shift thursday or the next 12 hour shift friday someone stole $20 out of her wallet.

yeah, you really have to watch your belongings in the hospital. there are so many people in and out all day long, it's a very easy environment for people to steal in. there is so much hustle and bustle, no one really pays attention to what anyone else is doing.

get your wife a pad lock for her locker or do what i do... carry my cash in my pocket and lock my purse in my trunk. i also made the mistake of leaving my stethescope laying out while i went off the floor to eat lunch. i've never seen it again.

RNMeg · May 15, 2010

Ugh, how awful! You'd like to think you could trust your co-workers, and then something like this happens :mad:

I guess I lucked out. I forgot my stethoscope at the nurses' station one morning after a grueling 12 hour night shift on my preceptorship. It was still behind the computer monitor where I left it the next night.

laynaER · May 15, 2010

Disgusting. Sucks she had to learn the hard way, i'd carry only necessities to work and carry money and credit/debit cards on me at all times.

Otessa, BSN, RN · May 15, 2010

Had this happen at work-police were called and report filed. Never happened again but they also don't know who did it.

I would bring only the necessities and keep them in a zipped coin purse-ID and $20. If I brought more I would lock it in my locker-I would float around so that was not always an option in some areas.

Co-workers, people from other floors, visitors, patients, you just never know.

otessa

Otessa, BSN, RN · May 15, 2010

AEDs now need to be locked up. People are stealing them off of crash carts.

otessa

Otessa, BSN, RN · May 15, 2010

Yeah put those stethoscopes on lockdown too!

I've had physicians take mine and I had my name written all over it! Got it back :smokin:

MCSS · May 16, 2010

I always carry my stethoscope around my neck when at work (also my portable pulse ox, since I paid for it out of pocket). I am sure people make fun of me especially in the summer when it gets hot but I don't care. My stethoscope was $240 and the pulse ox was $200 so I do not tempt anyone by leaving them around. When I worked in a doctor's office, we had the same stethoscope and he would always accuse me of taking his when it was mine. He is the only person that I ever let borrow my stethoscope as well. When doctors come in needing one, I don't let them use mine. I know it sounds selfish, but I don't want it to "walk away". I always carry my money and/or credit cards on me when at work. I have been a nurse for over 10 years and I am worked in many different places (I also do agency). Fortunately, it has never happened to me but I always hear stories no matter where I go about people having their wallets and/or money, etc. stolen. It sucks, you would think you could trust your coworkers but that is usually not the way it is.

CaLLaCoDe, BSN, RN · May 16, 2010

I don't bring any cash or valuables into work for this very reason!

1. Had my wallet stolen prior to being a nurse in a retail store (employees only area)

2. Had a stethoscope stolen in the dressing room of an OR while in nursing school.

I am sorry this happened to your wife! Perhaps they should change the code to that door! Could be someone who used to work there gave someone else the code, who knows?

It scares the cr@p out of me when I see nurses bring in their expensive electronic cardiac stethoscopes. Especially when one works an oncology floor! :eek:

A bright pink stethoscope or bright orange one is physiciancyde.

CNL2B · May 16, 2010

I think this happens alot, actually. We get floats that use our locker room and housekeeping goes in there several times a day to empty the trash. When this happened to me, my money was taken out of my wallet, in my purse, in my locker (not locked), behind the locker room door which is inside the break room, which is inside a secured SICU entrance. I thought it was safe -- probably would have been from the general public, but apparently not from an employee that knew how to get in there. Nice, huh?

mmm333, LVN · Aug 16, 2010

I walked into the break room as a nursing student and found a female physician cramming my packed brownbag lunch into her mouth, leaving none of it. I just sat and watched TV and didn't say anything, and just watched her carefully bury the evidence under other garbage in the dustbin. I saw another doc looking around, carefully moving a stethoscope that belonged to another student, little by little, toward the edge of a computer table then into their leather portfolio- that time I intervened and said "hey, that stethoscope belongs to my cohort"- he flubbered and said "oh- it looks exactly like mine" but I knew what he was up to.

Some people are just totally selfish and some even have psych issues around spending their own money or resisting the urge to take things they want from other people. You hear about wealthy politicians getting caught shoplifting simple items from hardware stores for a reason.

This is why you always lock things up, clearly identify them, and pay for any tracking software you can on your laptop or iphone.