Another shift over and I return home to peel off the nurse and slip into something more comfortable.
My ED survival kit, along with the accumulated detritus from the shift is emptied from the nooks and crannies of my uniform. These are placed in a small pile on a shelf in my bedroom.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a fascination with the doohickeys and trinkets that people carry on themselves.
So at the risk of impaling you with *too much information*, let me empty my doohickeys onto your screen:

• Digital watch: Being the gadget tragic that I am, I wear a *huge* Suunto digital watch. It has a built in compass, altimeter, barometer, defibrillator and arterial blood-gas normalizer. However some time ago I think I got sunscreen into its workings and now none of these functions work.
  It does, however, still tell the time.
• Mala: Worn around my neck to remind me to be where I am.
• Keys to my office: All the offices in the emergency department are located at the rear of the building in a corridor referred to as the back passage for reasons that would become quickly apparent to you if you worked there.
• Various bits of loose paper: usually very important, that I invariably leave in my pockets only to have them become soggy pulpified dandruff speckled amongst my laundry.
• Badge: My role is to assist in the clinical development, of the nursing staff and to foster evidence based practice and critical thinking. I guess I aspire to inspire.
• Purse: Yes, real men carry purses. Made in Nepal and cost me all of $2.00. But it now has great sentimental value. Unlike the watch which cost a great deal of money but is now worth around $2.00. Go figure.
• Loose change: Maybe, just maybe, enough for a coffee.
  Nope.
  Iain, could you lend me a dollar?
• Moleskine: A leather bound notebook that contains everything I need to do, every good idea I have ever had.
• Pen: I am very particular about the kind of pen I use. I like the Artline Ergoline series it glides on smooth as silk. As I have said, your documentation should reflect your attitude to your art.
• Pair of scissors: Vital tool of the trade. I seem to accumulate scissors like lint in a bellybutton.
• Leatherman Wave: This is worn in a black pouch on my belt. I have already talked about it here, but it comes in useful for fixing broken equipment, cutting an extra thick slice of cake or picking particularly stubborn bits of lint out of my bellybutton.
• Small torch: used for eliciting pupil response during neurological assessment and shining up my nose to gross out children.

So that’s it.
With all that ballast on board its a wonder that I manage to get through a shift with my pants up.