Nurses Shoes

Comfortable Nurses Shoes

Nurses have gotten used to washing their hands many, times a day to lower the chances of transmitting germs but what about all the other protective clothes and nurses shoes that don’t get washed daily.

A recent New York Times article came out posing this question: Are nurses and medical staff clothing safe from transmitting hospital infections in and outside of the hospital?

Since there hasn’t been much hard statistical research done on this topic, the answer is somewhere between there’s been no explicit breakout due to medical clothing and medical shoes so why worry to there’s a risk since the materials in clothes and shoes can carry germs where every they go.

Tara Parker-Pope says that there is some data that indicates clothing and shoes are fill of germs but there has been no connecting role to spreading infections like MRSA, staph infections and pneumnia.

Here’s a good quote from the article:

…a Connecticut hospital sought to gauge the role that clothing plays in the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The study found that if a worker entered a room where the patient had MRSA, the bacteria would end up on the worker’s clothes about 70 percent of the time, even if the person never actually touched the patient.

“We know it can live for long periods of time on fabrics,” said Marcia Patrick, an infection control expert in Tacoma, Wash., and co-author of the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology guidelines for eliminating MRSA in hospitals.

Most Wear Nurses Shoes Many Times Before Cleaning Them

Nurses and medical staff often don’t wear the same scrubs and gowns for more than one shift but I’d like to raise the question of how many different kinds of germs are given a cookie crumb trail left behind by nurses shoes?

Most medical staff, nurses and doctors don’t go around cleaning their shoes with the same antibacterial soap they use on their hands regularly or detergent for their clothes and are more often wearing the same shoes on a regular basis.

What about the germs that are trapped under and spread around by every hospital worker’s shoe?

A Nurse Speaks Up for Minimizing Hospital Gear Outside Work

An ICU nurse raises an interesting comment  about this article:

As an ICU RN, I cannot tell you how many patients I have treated with VRE or MRSA (two nasty drug resistant bacterial strains). Even with the precautions we take I will go into the locker room and change right after a shift because i do not want to risk exposing my family or anyone else I may incidentally come in contact with on the way home. I have never understood the tendency for RNs and MDs to wear their scrubs outside the hospital. I have encountered people in scrubs in gyms (already a breeding ground for MRSA), grocery stores, malls, and even restaurants. Certainly I understand the fatigue that makes one just want leave work without bothering with changing into street attire, but by acting with such disregard defeats the purpose of all we do in the hospital to curb the spread of these dangerous organisms.

Technorati Tags: germs in hospitals, hospital infections, medical scrubs, mrsa, nurses shoes

Lavender Oils Lower Stress for Nurses?

Lavender Oils Lower Stress for Nurses

I watched Anger Management this weekend and I can’t really imagine that saying goosfraaba like Derek Jeter really helps take down anger levels a notch but reading up on a new study done on lowering the stress levels of intensive care nurses by using essential oils sounds like treading new waters in keeping a cool head in a high stress nursing environment.

To find out if this theory holds water to some of the highest stressed nurses in their hospital one nurse at Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital conducted an on site experiment.

Erin Pemberton got 14 intensive care unit nurses to participate in this study. The ICU nurses were working 12 hour shifts and were asked put some aromatherapy oils onto their forearms and then gauge their level of stress. To make sure there was a control, the nurses who participated in this study did not know what kind of oils they were using. They may have been taking a placebo, almond oil or the actual lavender and clary sage oil.

When the results came in, over 57% of the ICU nurses said they had lower levels of perceived stress after using the lavender and clary sage oils.

Those are pretty good results from something as simple and inexpensive as putting on some good quality essential oils.

Nurses Benefit from Pure Essential Aromatherapy Oils

There are a few things to watch out for. Aromatherapy works to the extent of the purity of the oils. Read up on what lavender oil is, so when you visit your local health food store or shop for lavender oil online make sure the oil you’re looking to buy is essential oil that is true 100% lavender.

Some signs to be on the lookout for not pure lavender is something called spike lavender oil. It has the opposite effect on people, making them cough and acts as a stimulant, this is the opposite of what pure lavender oil does as a relaxant and stress reducer.

This is some great work done by a nurse to help make the high stress environment of an intensive care unit nurse just a little bit better by taking their stress level down. If you’d like to try using lavender oil yourself, give it a go and tell us how it works to make your work day as a nurse that much better.

There are plenty of online sources of lavender oil but here’s a good source of 100% pure essential lavender oil for aromatherapy uses. There may be a lot  out there but this is the best selling on on Amazon and probably as good as you can get buying essential oils online.

Goosfraba everybody!!

Technorati Tags: icu nurses, lower stress nurse

Shoes form an integral part of our wardrobe and lifestyle. No matter what kind of work we do, the most important criteria for shoes is that, they should be comfortable for the wearer. This holds especially true if you are a busy professional and your work demands that you have to be on your feet for a long time. This becomes all the more important if you are in the medical profession and working as a nurse. The professionals need to make sure that, along with their clothes, the nurse shoes that they buy and use for their work, are comfortable and does not cause any strain on their feet. Those who work in medical profession or similar profession need to work for long hours and most of the times the working hours are erratic. Running and standing, catering to patients constantly, can really take a toll on your health and it is your duty to ensure that the uniform you wear and the shoes you wear do not cause any amount of discomfort to you, in doing your work efficiently.

Now, the most important thing for a nurse is to choose the shoes and other footwear properly. The question is how do you do that – now doing this is very easy; you just have to take care of some basic things. Make sure that the nurse shoes that you choose have rubber soles, the rubber soles gives you stability while walking, running or just standing for a long time. Rubber soles are also protective against any foreign substance, that you can step on while you are too busy with your work and do not even have the time to see, what surface you are stepping on to. The shoes must have non slip soles; you do not want to slip on something while you are working. You never know when you have to encounter a slippery floor in the hospital, so it is better to be cautious about this.

There are an endless number of varieties available in the market when it comes to nurse shoes; one just needs to make sure that they choose wisely. Nurses must never compromise the comfort factor in favor of style and today there are plenty of nurse shoes available in the market that cover both these aspects. Generally, nurse shoes are manufactured keeping in mind all these aspects. Some of the common brands available in the market for nurse shoes Barco, Dickies, Cherokee, Crest, Littman, White Swan and Peaches. You can make your choice from all these major brands besides several other brands.

Buying comfortable nurse shoes is very easy; you just need to know from where you can get them.  If you are confused about this, you can use the internet to find out information about the stores in your city where you can buy nurse shoes. There are also several online stores from where you can buy nurse shoes of your choice. Some of them offer the shoes at a discount price, so it becomes easier for you to buy the nurse shoes.

Article Source

Technorati Tags: choosing nurses shoes, nurses shoes, nursing shoes

What? Are you crazy? When I think of Birkenstock, my mind does not immediately flash to nurses. Instead it does flash back to some party-happy, college friends that enjoyed Pink Floyd and The Doors.

Birkenstock, much like Crocs, do not bring to mind a vision of style and elegance either, but those days are changing. Both Crocs and Birkenstock nurses shoes can be found in a variety of styles that look both professional and stylish.

Style aside, the main questions when it comes to finding the perfect nursing shoes are they comfortable and SAFE. With nursing shoes being undoubtedly the most important piece of your uniform, prices can be somewhat expensive ranging from $80-150%2B, so investing the time to research which one of the dozens of nursing shoes should be a high priority. Anything less than the perfect shoe could cost you more in the long run resulting in injuries to your feet, ankles, and back.

With over 2000 hours on your feet every year just at work, nurses can do some pretty severe damage to their spine and ankles thus limiting the years they will be able to continue working effectively. Light, comfortable shoes are very important not just for your general mood but can really subtract from your bank account.

Crocs Professionals can be a world cheaper, starting at only $30. While not every employer allows Crocs because of the open areas in the shoes and even some states have banned medical workers from wearing them for safety reasons, almost all clogs still win the popularity votes hands down.

Some questions when searching for a safe, dependable, shoe:

1.) Are they slip resistant?

2.) Do they stay in place on your feet?

3.) Are they light or heavy?

4.) Are they easy to clean?

5.) Are they fluid resistant?

6.) Are they quiet?

Which do you prefer? Crocs, Dansko, or Birkenstock nurses shoes.

Article Source

Technorati Tags: birkenstock nurses shoes, nurse shoes, nurses shoes, nursing shoes

Will Prada one day think about making fabulous nurses shoes that scream elegance and beauty? Would nurses ever want to wear nurses shoes for a 12 hour shift that EVER made their feet screaming for anything?

Heck no! Nurses shoes are supposed to be comfortable and full of support because they are the only thing between us and being on the floor all day taking care of patients.

Finally the outside nurses world can take a hint from what nurses shoes have to offer by focusing on comfort. Too often women wear those elegant and beautiful shoes to end up suffering from some major foot problems. Comfort and support take a front row pass on this year’s World Shoe Association. Check out  CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOLE for more on the latest on womens shoe trends.

Technorati Tags: comfortable nurses shoes, nurse shoes, nurses shoes, nursing shoes

For all the ‘problems‘ that Crocs have been given from hospital administrators there are some good real life heroes coming from Croc nurses shoes in Florida recently.

An attending nurse gave the very shoes off her feet to help a newly released patient get home as comfortable as possible. The nurse who braved the rain said:

‘Getting into a car with a new knee is bad enough. Riding home from this hospital with wet feet is unacceptable.’

What a great way to go the extra mile!

Thanks to the News-Press for their coverage of this good deed.

See the original story: Nurse goes extra mile with helping hand, err, shoe

Technorati Tags: croc nurses shoes, nurses shoes, nursing sheos

On the heels of finding out about more of our US hospitals not taking kindly to the Croc rubber clogs a more recent decision was made to ban Crocs in all Vienna hospitals. Croc nurses shoes turn out to be as popular overseas as they do in the States.

Along with it, they pose the same hypothetical health risks to patient says the director of Vienna’s city hospitals:

“Technical evaluations have shown that they’re not antistatic and could interfere with the proper functioning of precision electronic equipment, or even cause explosions”.

They won’t be allowing any Crocs in op rooms, ICUs, radiology or dialysis departments where its required to where antistatic clothes.  They are playing it very safe because they admit that this is a preventative measure and there have been no Croc related incidents.

Read more at Vienna hospitals ban Croc nurses shoes.

Technorati Tags: croc nurses shoes, nurses shoes, nursing shoes

The comfortable and easy to recognize Crocs have become a popular choice among nurses across the country. The many colors and styles to choose from makes it easy for nurses to customize their shoes to their taste within a small budget. But not all is well in Croc-land. Last year, one hospital in Pennsylvania decided to ban the popular rubber clogs due to “health risks”.

Hear what one nurse says about the croc ban in this NPR clip.

I think its as likely to have a health risk from the vents in crocs as it is a risk in scrubs! Any croc horror stories out there?

Technorati Tags: croc nurses shoes, nurses shoes, nursing shoes

One of the many concerns nurses have about their shoes giving them proper support is getting foot pain, like Plantar Fasciitis. Once you get Plantar Fasciitis, it becomes the focus of your life because you can’t do anything, let alone work in comfort. One of the quick ways to see if your nurses shoes give you the support you need in them is something called the shoe push down test.

It checks to see where you shoe bends. If your shoe bends by the ball of your foot, then congrats your foot is supported. If your shoe bends somewhere in the middle, ouch you’re on the road to foot discomfort and pain.

The Nures Shoe Support Test

Here’s how you do it:
Hold the base of your shoe in the palm of your hand and place the front of your shoe on a flat surface.

Then press down and look at the flexion point of your shoe.

That’s it.

This would be a great test to do on any of your new shoe purchases. You can do it mildly inconspicuously at the store to see if those good looks and fancy features actually result in your foot being supported! Actually, go through your everyday shoes and do this little test. It will be good to see what you actually have in your closet that supports or doesn’t support your feet.

A big thanks to Dr Pribut on his article on Plantar Fasciitis for the find.

Technorati Tags: nurse shoes, nurses shoes, shoes support, support