The 6 Best Shoes Nurses Wear for Their 12-Hour Shifts

With a contoured footbed that supports high arches and a rocker bottom that takes pressure off your joints, the XP 2.0 are a go-to clog for folks in health care that spend long hours on their feet.

Bronzetti, who now wears Hoka shoes because of her podiatry issues, was a die-hard Dansko fan before her foot surgery. “I only stopped wearing them because I had to,” she said, adding that she wore the same pair of clogs for 23 years. “Danskos are like tanks—they last forever.”

Bronzetti found that her Dansko clogs were supremely comfortable and offered good arch support. She also liked that leather clogs were easy to wipe clean and didn’t hold on to stains, and being able to quickly slip in and out of them was an added bonus.

Danskos have a 2-inch heel, which was another part of their appeal to Bronzetti—“I liked that they gave me height”—but that same heel can be a hazard. “If you fall off them, you really fall off of them,” she said, which makes them much harder to run in if the situation calls for hustling.

These slip-resistant clogs offer good arch support, a flat outsole that reduces joint stress, and replaceable insoles.

When labor and delivery nurse Tina Bitangol is on duty, she likes to cycle between her Brooks Adrenaline sneakers and her Alegria Kayla clogs, “just to give my feet something different to settle into from the shift prior,” she said. She likes the Alegria Kayla clogs in particular because they’re sturdier and more supportive than clogs made out of foam (such as Crocs).

“I would never wear something that was simply foam or made from soft, squishy material,” she said over email. “My feet would ache after any significant length of time, so I look for something that supports my higher arches and narrow feet well.”

Lightweight and easy to clean, Crocs are cushy, comfortable, and well ventilated for people concerned with foot odor.

There are, however, nurses that are fully on the Crocs clog bandwagon. Denver Health nurse Danielle Salvadori used to wear On Clouds with compression socks, but got frustrated by foot odor. “The smell was unmanageable, so I switched to Crocs so my feet could air out.”

Salvadori has been wearing her ventilated Crocs clogs for about a year, and since she’s made the switch, she hasn’t been assaulted by the smell of her own feet. She also finds them surprisingly supportive and easy to clean (when they get particularly dirty, she likes to toss them in the washing machine). The downside, though, is that the trademark holes along the top of the clog leaves her feet exposed, which isn’t always ideal in a hospital setting.

“The holes bit me in the butt for the first time the other day—got some pee in my sock and felt it soak in between my toes,” she said, adding that this unfortunate incident wouldn’t stop her from rocking her Crocs at work. “I’m telling you—my feet were a cesspool of stink before I switched over.”