Hospital Shoes And Socks Will Make Or Break Your Night Shift

If you don't have comfortable hospital shoes or hospital socks, you might as well call in sick.  Having sore feet can really be frustrating during a twelve hour night shift.  Forget about annoying pages at 6 am for   critical lab potassium levels of 3.2.  Forget about the social admit  from the emergency room at 3 am. Forget about the healthy 40 year old with a broken arm who needs a hospitalist pre-op evaluation at 5 am.  It's all about the hospital shoes and the hospital socks. Comfortable hospital shoes and socks will make or break your night shift experience.   Here are some of my  requirements for  the hospital shoes and hospital socks.

• Easy on and easy off:   No shoe laces.  When I have to go do something from a dead sleep the last thing I want to do is mess around with shoe laces.  Slip 'em on and off  ye go.  That's the number one criteria for my hospital shoe. 
  
• Breathability.  I've had several pairs of rubber Birkenstocks that don't breath.  I didn't know how bad they were until I found a shoe that was able to breath. Nothing worse than hot sweaty feet at 3 am.
• Lightweight. Hospital shoes must be lightweight.   I don't want to feel like I'm draggaing around a barbell all night. 
• Flexible.  Nothing worse than feeling like you're wearing a lead pipe at 4 am.
  
• Durable.  I don't want to buy a new pair of hospital shoes every couple of months.
• Buy them on sale.  It's for work.  Never pay full price for your hospital shoes. 
• Style:  You gotta look cool for granny at 2 am, plus when you do a great job you can always say "It's gotta be the shoes."
  

I'm currently wearing a slip-on Teva that I bought off the sale rack over a year ago.  They have held up quite well, although I just discovered part of the sole breaking apart.  Here's a picture of them below.  The best $30 I ever deducted as a business expense for hospital shoes. 

What about the hospital socks? Until I started running, my socks consisted of buying eight pairs of tube socks for five bucks from Walmart.  They were thick and bulky.  I never knew what I was missing until  Mrs Happy turned me on to the Balega wicking socks.  I loved the Smart Wool socks even better but I found their life span less than something to be desired.   These Balega wicking socks  are incredible.  They're comfortable.  They're breathable.  They're flexible and durable.  And they're stylish.  They are great for running and excellent to use as hospital socks on the night shift.

Having the shoes without the socks can negate all the benefit you get from comfortable hospital shoes. Here's a picture of my hospital socks.

Just remember.  If you want to make it through a night shift in one piece, you have to get yourself some comfortable hospital shoes and hospital socks and put your pager on divert for non emergency pages. So what are your favorite hospital shoes and socks?