Our Story
Linda Philipp - Nurse & ROCKET Creator
When working 12 hour shifts, you find yourself involved in so many tasks for your patients. Every patient has their own needs, and to handle those needs, we nurses need various tools and supplies. Most nurses end up with a LOT of stuff in their pockets, and by the end of the day you've got a few partially used rolls of tape, a pair of scissors, gauze, alcohol pads, etc. etc. etc. Even with all that stuff in my pockets, I found that I never had some of the things I needed. If I actually rummaged through my pockets things would fall out all over the place. And I was tired of ruining my scrubs - scissors and hemostats would always poke a hole right down in the corner of my pockets. I found myself asking, "Who borrowed my penlight?" And the frustrations continue.
My friend Nancy Richmond and I used to talk about how we could either never find what we needed, or had to borrow something from the new grad nurse who seemed to always be prepared. Eventually, those prepared nurses wouldn't be prepared because everyone else "borrowed" all their cool stuff. I knew this was happening on every unit or floor, and in every hospital. But we nurses simply accepted it as part of a nurse's reality. Until Nancy started talking about what became the kernel of this idea.
Me and my husband, Bern, in Ireland for our 25th!
My husband and I took a leap of faith and started looking into whether we could create something for nurses to address these issues. We originally had an idea of something akin to a leatherman, but with stuff nurses need. We even contemplated the two halves being attached with magnets so two accessories could be used simultaneously. We hired a product designer and off we went. We kicked around a lot of different ideas, and were excited to commission our first prototype.
"Prostat 7" prototype
Looking back now, we can only laugh (and cry a little over the money we spent). This monstrosity was about 10" long and weighed a ton. So not practical! So we went back to the drawing board and came up with the overall design we have today.
First "vertical" design - too big & chubby
We landed on this "vertical" design, but still needed to figure out how to get it smaller and lighter. We redesigned a few key parts until we arrived at today's ROCKET. Still not 100% satisfied, I wanted to create our own scissors and hemostats so that when stored inside the inner shaft, the ends would be even and match together. They also have larger finger holes to better fit the over-worked gnarled knuckles of today's hard-working nurse, and because there are more men in nursing now, too. Even though most scissors and hemostats should still work, ours are guaranteed not to fall out, even while running to a code.