Timberland Fells Trainer shoe

Our Plattsburgh State Nursing student handbook has very strict guidelines for clothing. It includes "all-white shoes."

Now, it is a fact that most all-white shoes that are a possibility for wearing into a patient care setting are ugly as hell. See if you don't agree:


Exhibit#1These New Balance MW576 are a horrifying study in banality. With their thick soles, stubby toes, over-padded ankle support, and perforations placed without consideration, they conjure the phrase "comfort care" from the very ether.


Exhibit#2If you don't know yet, the Dansko stapled clog is supposed to be the gold standard in nursing footwear. For this reason they are included at AllHeart.com. And if you go to buy some there, you will notice that women's and men's Dansko clogs are sized on the same scale. Why? Because women's and men's Dansko clogs are the same shoe. The Dansko has made it onto shoe guru Manolo's Gallery of Horrors for good reason. It is as clunky and formless as a shoe can get. On women, it is slightly too masculine looking. On men, slightly too fem.


Exhibit#3You knew they had to be here, right? Another freak from Manolo's Gallery. He sums them up best:

These they are indeed the shoes of a hypothetical distopian future, one in which the inmates they must be dressed in the footwear least likely to be useful in the popular uprising against the regime.

That pretty much describes a hospital. Anyhow, if a man is going to own crocs, it should be a pair of, maybe, these...

Exhibit#4
...but these are not a possibility for wearing into a patient care area.



So, what is one to do about this situation? My answer was the Timberland Fells Trainer:
The Fells Trainer has a number of advantages in the situation I've laid out:

1. It is white enough not to be offensive with a white nursing uniform, but...
2. it is not white enough to conform to the "handbook," while...
3. one could plead ignorance about the silver stripes when ordering off the Internet...
4. and the red lining matches our school colors, and, hence, our uniform patches, etc.

Is the Fells Trainer a comfortable shoe for shift work? Well, for some it might be. For me, not so much, but I weigh a lot. That's why I replaced the standard insole with a Moszkito.

The point of course is not to get you to buy the Fells Trainer (which isn't sold in white now anyway), but to think outside the box a little. There will be plenty of time for conformity when our RN licenses are on the line. For now, it is nice to tweak the nursing instructors a bit.