Here’s the thing.
While many hospital policies say nurses working on 12-hour shifts should get at least 3 to 15-minute breaks and at least one undisturbed mealtime, you’ll be lucky to get any of that regularly.
You could demand for it but we both know that you can’t just take a break when your colleagues are swamped –which is more often the case than not.
The truth is putting your patient’s needs first as a nurse is a reflex action. That means that your breaks and mealtime are an afterthought –but you still need these breaks and as far as mealtime goes, you can solve that by getting a lunch bag you can carry around with you effortlessly.
So, we went nurse lunch bag window shopping and found 8 nursing lunch bags you can choose from for you, or to gift your best friend nurse:
Because it’s hard to tell how long of a break you’ll get –enough for a full meal or just a snack –you could do with a bag with enough space to pack a variety of foods to eat when you can.
This is the Lokass Lunch Bag‘s best feature. It holds one 8 x 6 x 2.5 inches container, two 8 x 5 x 3 inches containers, 3 soda cans, and on top of it:
However, only one compartment is insulated. You can’t carry two types of food that you need to keep cold or warm. You can only carry one type or choose to deal with room temperature.
Plus, it does not come with a container so you’ll have to provide one.
A reviewer said, “Cute and functional.”
This bag is quite roomy with the main compartment able to seat a dozen soda cans. But in case that’s not exactly what you plan to do, here are more pros to think about:
On the downside, the Opux Dual Compartment Insulated Lunch Box sags awkwardly if you don’t fill it up. The nylon material, although it’s mixed with polyester, doesn’t last too long.
In fact, the lining begins to tear just a few months after purchase.
A recent review on Amazon reads, “Great bargain. High quality for the price paid.”
If you’re driven by the durability in a lunch bag above every other feature, then you’ll find that value in this polyester-made bag. Here are more positive features:
MIER could have done a better job with the MIER Adult Lunch Box Insulated Lunch Bag‘s color range.
The price is 19.99 for the medium size and 24.99 for the large size.
A reviewer says, “I really like the separate compartments.”
It doesn’t seem fair to spend as much as $39.95 on a nurse lunch bag –but if you know what it’s like when the insulation on your bag barely kept your soup warm, you may want to check out this bag’s features:
There are a few turnoffs though. For example, you need a cigarette lighter port to use the Hot Logic Mini and unfortunately, it doesn’t come with a container -you’ll have to spend extra money to get one.
One Amazon reviewer calls it a ‘home health miracle’.
Picture this: A lunch bag with a strong exterior and insulation reinforced with foam padding and aluminum. It’s a really great starting point if your top considerations are durability and insulation that could keep your food warm for an entire shift.
However, those two features alone don’t make a lunch bag worthy of a nurse’s schedule, so here’s more to the Insignia X lunch bag:
However, the interior lining barely makes it beyond a handful of uses and the zippers are weak. You need to get a Tupperware container too because it doesn’t come with one.
It’s only found in red and black so it may not be your top pick if you don’t like red –unless the 13.99 price tag is too good to resist.
A reviewer said, “So good. My first use of this bag was impressive.”
As far as boring bag designs go, the Lily Pulitzer Thermal Insulated Lunch bag is certainly not one of them. It has a bold print in 5 vibrant colors that may be just right for a nurse with a bubbly personality. Beyond the aesthetics:
One hard-to-ignore disadvantage is that Lily Pulitzer doesn’t promise you a leakage-free time with this lunch bag. You’ll also have to provide a food container, and while at it, and choose to live with only one compartment.
Finally, $29.95 is a little too much to pay for a lunch bag with a single compartment and no guarantee of preventing leaks.
One Amazon reviewer says it has great insulation and comfortably carries a container of salad, bag of strawberries, and cheese stick, crackers, and a large icepack.
Sometimes, simple classy works well for a nurse lunch bag too. Baloray seems to have hacked that style with this bag with the black and white stripes and a warm pink with brown handles variants. In addition to that:
Here’s the catch. Every food item you want to carry has to go into the same compartment. You’re also stuck with two shades of colors to choose from.
The price is $15.99 for the pink variant and $17.99 for the black and white stripes variant.
A satisfied reviewer said it was the best lunch bag ever, acts as a purse, and is very spacious.
STNTUS chose to divide the color palette on this bag between four dark colors and two bright ones. While that doesn’t do much for you if you’re looking for a wider color range, these functional aspects seem to make up for it:
Even with these STNTUS Lunch Bag pros, the nylon material barely makes it past a year without developing wear and tear.
The purple and navy blue varieties cost $18.99 each while the navy, grey & dark, gray, and dark cost $15.99 each.
A reviewer says,” It’s amazing. Works well in keeping your food warm or cold and I love how it’s flexible material so once it’s empty you can fold it smaller.”
We probably don’t need to tell you that nursing school is anything but easy or that there’s been a 9-year-old nurse shortage in the country that’s threatening to stay with us up to 2030.
When Nursing.Com (previously NRSNG) started in 2014, the goal was to put an end to this shortage. What better way to do that than making nursing school easy and ensuring that students pass their NCLEX exams?
To do achieve that, Nursing.com created an easy-to-use platform with tons of resources including courses, access to lessons, Nursing Practice Questions, care plans, cheat sheets, mnemonics, and pathocharts. Here is a list of more resources from Nursing.com that you should know about:
With the Nursing.com app, you can get access to learning material with an affordable subscription. That way, you can study wherever you are at whatever time. It’s a thoughtful consideration for the nursing student who juggles between work and school.
SIMCLEX is a simulator that works with a computerized adaptive test (CAT) technology to determine which questions you’re likely to run into in an NCLEX exam and to measure your preparedness for it based on how you answer those questions.
This simulator makes the questions harder or simpler depending on how you perform on the test.
Occasionally, you will get questions framed in a different way including those based on image or SATA. These questions help you to master important nursing content and ready you for the real NCLEX questions.
On top of SIMCLEX, you have access to over 300 about 10-minute long video lessons that are taught by actual nurses. These lessons teach on topics tested on NCLEX and they make the content as digestible as possible –including slides displaying illustrations and study notes. All the videos are on-demand and you can catch them at your convenience.
Nursing.com provides a boatload of practice questions (over 6000) in addition to video tutorials. All of them are constructed the same way as the actual NCLEX, while some are formatted differently to up your chances of passing the exam. In other words, these questions figuratively put you in an NCLEX exam room which works well in preparing your mind to excel.
For just a dollar, you get 3 days to try out everything on the platform. If you don’t like it so much, you can simply opt out by canceling at any time.
Nursing.com is sure you will pass the NCLEX exam if you use their resources –so much so that they are willing to pay you back double the money you spent on them if you’re not satisfied.
There’s a requirement though. You need to pass one of their SIMCLEX tests. If you pass this test but still fail the NCLEX exam, you will get the 200% refund that they rightly call ‘Famous (and semi-crazy)’ pass guarantee.
So far, Nursing.com has helped 360,000 nursing students to pass their classes and NCLEX with a 99% pass rate.
This is largely because unlike in a regular nursing school, the content helps you to get to the heart of your coursework and what NCLEX wants by removing the excess information you don’t need. Here are reviews from current nursing students:
At Nursing.com, we want to make studying nursing easy for you so you can live your nursing dream. You don’t have to struggle anymore with nursing content fluff and sleepless nights trying to cram coursework. Get a 3-day trial!
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