If I could only keep one
By Abby Turner, Melbourne ยท
People ask me what watch to buy for nursing all the time, and nine times out of ten this is my answer. Not the fancy one. This one.
The square G-Shock goes back to the original DW-5000C from 1983, and the shape has barely changed since, because it works. It's resin, so hand sanitiser, chlorhexidine and the occasional bodily fluid wipe straight off. It's rated to 200 m, which means I can scrub my hands, scrub the watch, then go for a swim at Brighton on my day off without a second thought. The mineral crystal is recessed behind the case edge, so it rarely takes a hit when I bump a bed rail.
It measures 48.9 mm, which sounds huge, but that's lug to lug on a square case and it wears much smaller than the number suggests. It's 13.4 mm thick, so it's not slim, but it's light and the strap is soft. The narrow 16 mm strap is the one thing I'd change if I could, because it can feel a little perched on a bigger wrist.
The functions are exactly what I need and nothing I don't: alarm, stopwatch, countdown timer and a backlight. The countdown timer is gold for IV antibiotics and anything that needs a recheck in fifteen minutes. The stopwatch does pulse and resp counts. Seconds are always on the display in big enough digits that I don't have to think.
My reservations are small. The backlight on this module isn't as nice as the full-screen glow on some newer models. It's not solar, so the battery needs replacing every few years. And it's not pretty. Jess calls it my lunchbox.
At US$50 to $70 it's a no-brainer. Anyone who sneers at it has never worked a night shift.