Personal equipment

What the category contains

• Nurse fob watches — the watch that clips onto your work clothes instead of your wrist. Eight colours plus four figure designs, including wings and a scrub cap.
• Scrub caps — nine patterns, from flowers and leaves to dinosaurs, whales, rabbits and unicorns.
• Compression socks — eight patterns for long shifts on your feet, with motifs such as penguins, pineapples, stethoscopes and an ECG trace.
• Badge holders — badge reel with a retractable cord for your access and ID card, in nine motifs.
• Name badges — badge with clip in three titles: nurse, doctor and medic.
• Marker pens — Sharpie in three colours, for everything that needs marking during the shift.

The watch you are allowed to wear

Basic hygiene precautions do not allow wristwatches or jewellery below the elbow in clinical work. That is the whole reason the nurse fob watch exists: it sits on the chest or the pocket instead, leaving the forearms free for hand disinfection. If you need to check the time often during a shift — for observations, for documentation, for recording times in the patient record — it is one of the few accessories that actually changes the working day.

The patterns serve a purpose

Patterned caps and socks are partly about getting to look like a person in a workplace where everyone wears the same clothes. But they also do a job in the encounter: a cap with dinosaurs or unicorns is the first thing a child looks at instead of the needle, and the same goes for the motifs on the badge holder. For adult patients the more discreet patterns — leaves, flowers, the ECG trace — work without standing out.

Check what your workplace's dress code allows before ordering for a whole unit. The rules on your own headwear and your own work clothes differ between hospitals, clinics and ambulance services.

The gift for someone starting in healthcare

Most things in this category are bought for one of two reasons: either for yourself ahead of a new workplace, or for someone else who has just started a healthcare programme. The watch, a patterned cap, a pair of socks and a badge reel for the access card are the four things that are used every shift but that a student rarely buys for themselves — and unlike a stethoscope, they do not require you to know which specialty the person will choose.

For the whole team

If you are ordering for a unit or a course group, two things decide: the dress code at the workplace and the quantity. Caps and socks are personal items that each person prefers to choose themselves, while name badges and badge holders work well to order in bulk. Get in touch if you need more than we have in stock, and we will come back with a delivery time before you place the order.

The rest of the working day

What you use in the examination itself is in other categories: stethoscopes, examination instruments, penlights and reflex hammers.