What's In Your Pocket?

Nurses New Nurse

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wanting to hear from you first year nurses about what you carry in your pockets and why, what could you not live without. I know I need a good watch, stethescope, hemastats, ............what else?

:confused:

Specializes in MICU/SICU.
which critical care reference book do you use?

Thelan's Critical Care Nursing, 5th edition. Searched thru Amazon and didn't find too many "general" CC textbooks, mostly specialty areas and workbooks.

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Specializes in Occupational Medicine, Orthopedics.

Various things end up in my pockets throughout the day, but what I always start with is:

Shot blocker

head circumference tape

chapstick

extra panti liner (well you asked)

pen

BP guidelines for each age group

and yes, alcohol wipes

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My scrub top right pocket: Pens (red, blue and black) highlighters, scissors, pen light

Scrub left pocket: Cardex, alcohol swabs, 4X4.

Left pant: 6 saline flushes.

Right pant: money for drinks

Hemostat with a roll of tape clamped to my top, ID badge clippled to my top, stethoscope around my neck and watch on my left wrist.

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Specializes in Neuro, Critical Care.

pens..My badge is on one of those badge holders and i have sharpies attached to it...ummm..sometimes my cardene scissors...tape occasionally...random things like iv caps or a bio patch....drugs occasionally.......money....lol

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Specializes in LTC, med-surg, critial care.

Three pens, one black, one red/green/purple (depends what I pull out that day) and one sharpie.

Tape

My "brain." I just make a copy of the rand card and write all over it.

Alcohol swabs in one pant pocket.

Alligators (I don't know the actual word for it) in the other pant pocket.

That dang phone they make me carry around. :uhoh3:

I'm a minimalist at heart.

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Specializes in Acute Care - Cardiology.

hemostats are also very helpful when starting ntg gtts! those bottle tops are a doozie!!!!! will cut you all up if you aren't careful...

what do nurses carry hemostats for?
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Specializes in Acute Care - Cardiology.

what's funny to me is how many of us carry chapstick around... and with regard for this, i just wanted to share that the best chapstick in the world (i am a lifelong chapstick conossieur :)) is the aveeno lip moisture chapstick with spf 15 (it's the tube with the green on it... not the blue). it is not sticky and lasts a long time. i love it. i'm an addict. wal-mart usually does not have it, but walgreens and krogers have it, i know.

guess i should share my pockets... but i'm an acnp student, so its a bit different for me. i carry lots of reference material. i prefer the one pocket scrub top and unisex drawstring pant with the one back pocket. i know, not a whole lot of storage space... but its what i like. since becoming an acnp student, i have to wear a white lab coat... with big pockets.

lab coat collar:

right: go red for women red dress pin

left: engraved name badge

lab coat breast pocket:

id badge clipped

half of dentyne ice peppermint gum (you can tear the foil in half and it lays flat).

lab coat left pocket:

pda (with my cards/moolah)

critical care medicine 2007

lab coat right pocket:

other references:

tarascon (because it crashed on my pda)

ferri's practical guide to the care of medical patients

medicine (book)

trauma shears

extra pen(s)

scrub top left breast pocket:

my fav pen

one sharpie

scrub pant back pocket:

pocket calendar

watch on left wrist

stethoscope with tape between ear pieces and light attached to bell/diaphragm end around my neck - ear pieces to the right. ;)

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so a million people already answered but I like lists and have insomnia so I will add mine.

In Nerdy Apron Thingie: Highlighter, sharpie, red pen and 3-4 black or blue pens, alcohol wipes, 2x2s, calipers, scissors, hemostat, tape, carpuject dealie, penlight.

In my pockets: More pens, more alcohol wipes, flushes, phone, random garbage like empty dilaudid vials and the tops off meds. Don't know why.

Of course I also pack the required stethoscope, watch and badge on retractable holder.

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Specializes in CCRN-CMC-CSC: CTICU, MICU, SICU, TRAUMA.
wanting to hear from you first year nurses about what you carry in your pockets and why, what could you not live without. I know I need a good watch, stethescope, hemastats, ............what else?

:confused:

I carry much the same as everyone else does, but I'll add an extra tegaderm, two kinds of tape, a couple of 20 gauge syringes and a petroleum gauze in the event a chest tube gets ripped out accidentally (which I've never seen, thanks goodness... but I know if I stop carrying it, it will surely happen to me). I also carry a blue plastic IVPB extender for the primary drip if I need to hang a piggy and don't have one handy or use something other than the packaged IVPB set. I have found this item handy to cleanly break scored pills when there are no pill cutters to be found as the curved edge section when straightened out makes a nice edge for this purpose... just cover your pill so it doesn't shoot across the room. I also carry a mini ACLS guide/flow chart, a happy to sad face pain scale, calculation formulas, my Dubin cheat-cheats from page 333 to 346 of the 6th ed., and some blank index cards. These come in handy for a million things including marking P-Ps or R-Rs on EKG strips to determine variance... I put little chit marks on the edge of the card as a measure of each interval/cardiac cycle and then can see the longest and shortest. This way I can easily just measure the variance quickly with my calipers. They also come in handy for jotting down any values or info I want to hand to another nurse (say I did a POC for someone) or I am watching their patient if they are on break... I can jot down the high and low vitals for them or any issues that cropped up when they were off the unit. Most importantly if someone is running to the deli I can jot down my sandwich order! I keep a strip of wide silk tape on my scrub leg to write down things to remember... example... a clamped NG/OG for 30 min for PO meds so I don't forget to unclamp it... or write down STAT values... say BP/HR pre/post SL nitro, or to record IVs thrown up during a code including the time line, or STAT verbal orders so I can read back and verify before getting to the station, or O2 setting changes and sats. I also have on my brain sheets the patient sticker for each of my assignments so I have Med Rec # handy for pharmacy, blood bank or lab, and a business card of my manager so I can put it in the hands of any patient that has a concern as per our scripting policy. I keep also with my brain sheet a schedule I baked up with columns and rows by the half hour... this way when I start my assignment I can put in times meds are due, when labs are drawn and resulted, each time I ambulated the pt, when the physicians rounded, also consults, events, and anything else pertinent. This keeps me on schedule and also provides a great timeline from which I can easily and accurately recreate my day in my narrative if I haven't had time to get to it and keep it as current as I would otherwise have liked. I also have a small vibrating alarm that looks like a pager that I can set. It alerts me to each hour at which time I make sure my postops are pulling on their IS and ensures that other q1h issues, POCs, etc. are timely and complete. I keep extra socks, scrubs and clogs in my locker in case things get messy and a can of soup and some instant oatmeal in case I have to eat on the run. I keep a reflex hammer in my locker as well since I don't use it that much. I'm considering carrying eye protection because I've recently been around a couple of splashes during procedures at the bedside. That about sums it up for me. Maybe I need a backpack so I can also carry a 1000 mL bag each of both NSS and LR! Hahahahaha!

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Specializes in med/surg,ER,ICU,Transfers.

I carry

alcohol wipes

report sheet

PDA

scissors

calculator....I have needed this quick in code blue situations & been the only one with one on me.

3 pens (1 red)

yellow highlighter

pen light (pupils, see iv pumps @ night)

watch on wrist

tape

bandaids

stethscope around neck

Braden scale small version

I have a pocket organizer most of these things fit into. I bought it for less than 10$ at a scrub shop

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Specializes in Med Surg, ER, OR.

Things I carry...

two pens (black)

red pen

highlighter

sharpie

dry erase marker

scissors

2x2's

alchol wipes

pair of extra gloves (always stuck on other side of room when needed most and can't get to gloves fast enough)

stethoscope

clear tape

badge (pen light attached to badge reel - purchased from wal mart)

clipboard with kardex and notes - cheat notes taped on back of clipboard.

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Specializes in LTC, hospitals and correctional settings.

When working nights in a nursing home, I ALWAYS carried my personal cell phone with me. Most of the rooms didn't have phones and to run back to the nurses station to call for help if you had an emergency just wasn't practical or safe.

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