What do I carry now?
(1) ID on a pull extension, so I can scan through the doors between our waiting-room-ER and our actual-ER a dozen times per shift. Also sometimes when patients ask for the third time who I am, I show them the badge and smile (MULTIPASS!)
(2) My phone, unless I left it at my desk playing on a Bluetooth speaker. At which point I will wish I brought it with me, mostly to confirm the address of the pharmacy a patient wants their meds eRx’d to.
(3) My stethoscope lives in my backpack, but at some point I pull it out, and from that point forward it may come with me to see patients, a prop and homage to a bygone era.
(4) An ink pen, which lives in my scrub pocket, with which I can sign EKGs. The signing of the EKG is an integral part of our religion.
What else do I keep in my backpack?
(1) Trauma shears (raptor)
(2) Coozy for monster energy drinks
(3) My little black notebook
(4) Tourniquet
(5) bougie (for good luck only)
(6) Bluetooth speaker
(7) Forms of caffeine (powdered energy drink; instant coffee)
(8) Some Tylenol
(9) Emergency hemeoccult, fluorescence, tetracaine.
(10) Good plug-in charger for iPhone and USB-C
(11) Too many ink pens
In pre-pandemic times, I tended to wear cargo pants on shift. I actually kept the pockets full of things that were convenient to have on me, or might be very useful at a floor code/airway. The things I actually used a lot which were nice to have—
(1) Gauze and tape
(2) An #11 blade (mostly for removing sutures… but theoretically for a cric)
(3) A skin marker
(4) a wound culture tube and Qtip thing
I also kept a pocket bougie, 14g long angio, and tourniquet rubber banded to some nasal narcan.
I will admit, being a walking wound cart was actually really helpful for seeing patients in WR, hallways, and unstocked spaces… didn’t have to go hunting the suture cart just to get a gauze and tape, or remove a couple stitches.
But I mostly wear scrubs now, and haven’t missed this stuff enough to get a fanny pack or something.