As a newly-minted RN, I’m starting my first hospital job this week (well, this week is just orientation, computer classes, and other boring stuff; I won’t actually get on the care floor until next week).
I’m just wondering what you think, if anything, about people who wear their scrubs outside the clinical setting. A couple of weeks ago, I went out for drinks with a friend who works at the same hospital, and met several of the nurses I’ll be working with. All of them were in their scrubs at the bar, and in a social/public situation like that, it struck me as a teeny bit “Look at me!” Personally, if I know I’m going out socially after work, I’ll bring a change of clothes, though I can’t see doing that for just hitting the gym or running quick errands – or is even that tacky?
I realize it’s possible that I see people in scrubs all the time and never paid them any mind until now. I’m curious as to when and where Doper health care workers wear their scrubs, and whether non-health care workers think it’s a little attention-whorish.
I agree that it can seem a bit attention-whoreish but I have a few sets left over from when my husband worked in a hospital and they are damn comfortable so I am not above putting them on for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I don’t know that I would do that for a bar, but since I dont’ change clothes when I go to a bar after work I can’t fault someone that doesn’t want to go through the hassle. It’s the same as the guy that wears his best buy shirt to a bar. Except he may get beaten to death by people that hate best buy.
My pet peeve is with people that insist on wearing scrubs for jobs that don’t really require them, like daycare workers. I get that you’re doing a good and noble job, but I don’t really think you’ll need the ease and comfort of a quick change set for that diaper change! If that’s the case please call me to come pick up my kid!
I think they’re fine for errands after work, or anyplace you have to go to without changing.
If you’re going out after work on the spur of the moment and you can’t change into something else, fine. But if you can possibly change into civvies, you should.
We won’t even talk about those who show up at the bar on their days off in scrubs. Reminds me of a med school colleague who wouldn’t read a medical journal of his own accord if you locked him in a cell with a stack of them, but who always took the latest JAMA or New England Journal when he was lying out by his apartment complex pool.
I don’t think attention-whorish when I see folks in scrubs.
I used to live down the street from one of those medical training schools, and all the students were required to wear scrubs. So now whenever I see people in scrunbs, I think “Oh, they must be a nurse’s assistant.”
Wearing scrubs outside of work is no more “cheesy” than wearing any other uniform.
If you must wear scrubs outside the hospital, please make sure they’re clean ones. I don’t need to see that stain on your scrubs and wonder what caused it.
I hardly think anything of it. You do not always have time to change into regular clothes after work so I see nothing wrong with someone grabbing a drink in scrubs. White collar business workers do it all the time. Their version of dressing down involves removing their tie or jacket and that is not always the case. When I worked at camp my friends and I used to always go out to eat in our counselor shirts because we rarely left the site before 630. Same thing when I worked in an office. Long hours mean little time for changing.
I had a routine lab meeting with half PhDs and half MDs. The MDs would not only wear scrubs, but would have their stethoscopes always visible on their person. As if we would forget that they were doctors if they didn’t have their props available at all times. So, the PhDs started wearing pipettes and eppendorf tubes around their necks, which was no less silly, but got the point across.
I vote cheesy. It takes approximately nine seconds to change from scrubs to jeans and a t-shirt.
Sorry about the hijack, but aren’t there cleanliness issues with wearing scrubs outside in public? Any concerns with bringing stuff back into a sterile environment?
In general, no, I’d assume they’re not picky about clothing and such. But when I see a young guy with geled hair, stylin’ sunglasses, and scrubs … well, maybe a little.
Nothing sterile about hospitals. I worry about the reverse. I never thought about it much but one time a woman showed up at a family get together in scrubs and many people had concerns about germs. There were many old people and young children present and the general concensus was that scrubs were not appropriate. Sure a person may work in an office setting and have perfectly clean scrubs but the general public won’t know that. For all we know you just spent a 40 hour shift in the ebola ward.
I think that image would actually be a good ad campaign for separating people that wear them out of convenience rather than out of poser image.
The TV ads would have models on a turntable in various scrubs.
"Become an Assistant to a Nurses Assistant in only 3 weeks. Courses include bedpan maintenance, regurgitation control, and hospital food service etiquette for the terminally ill. Classes start today and wages adhere strictly to the minimal wage laws in your state. Call 1-800-PUKE-YOU for details"
I have to admit though that I have some medical school and surgical training from a not quite related grad school program in behavioral neuroscience but mostly not on people.
My daughters were born via C-section and I was right there each time telling the nurses that I really could stand seeing my wife getting cut open and my children come out for me to hold. I wasn’t some father that would feel faint and sit behind the curtain. They believed me and obliged each time and the whole show was something that I am glad I witnessed.
After it was all over, I felt like a true member of the surgical team and wore my scrubs for the next few hours even when I could have taken them off. When I walked around the hospital and even into the cafeteria, I could definitely feel that special feeling so I can understand the draw.
I wear scrubs to work about 75% of the time. When I’m in an OR rotation, I get the scrubs from the machine at work–just because it’s “the rules,” and it’s not worth arguing with the OR nurse manager about it.
Scrubs aren’t sterile. Even the scrubs that the othopedic surgeon is wearing while he replaces your hip aren’t sterile. But the gown that goes over the scrubs and his gloves are.
Also, if we’re working in the Ebola Ward, we’re probably wearing a protective gown, gloves, shoe coverings and a mask that we’ll discard upon leaving.
[sub]I know, I know…we’d probably really have on one of those hooded respirators in a real Ebola Ward. I’m just sayin’…[/sub]
I’m certainly not seeking any attention by wearing scrubs. I can’t imagine that any of the doctors, nurses or other techs I work with are, either.
Sometimes I run errands on my lunch hour, I’m not going to waste several minutes of my lunch hour changing back and forth. I often stop at the store on my way home from work. I don’t always plan ahead and bring clothes to change into, so most of the time I wear my scrubs. If I had plans in advance to go out socially after work then I’d bring a change of clothes with me, if it was a spur of the moment thing I’d either go in my scrubs or more likely swing by my house and change clothes since I don’t live that far from work.
Is it cheesy? I think it depends on the context, but most of the time I’d say no. When I see people in scrubs it’s at a store I don’t think that’s a big deal. I probably wouldn’t think much of it in a fast food place, diner or even a bar. If it were a nice restaurant then I’d think the people should have taken a few minutes to change but even then it could have been a spur of the moment thing.
By the way, I think most people who wear scrubs whether they work with animals or people would not go out in public if they had something disgusting and potentially contagious on them.
So, I liken others wearing scrubs to me wearing my field clothes. I have a set of clothing that pretty much says “scientist on safari” that I wear when we go out to do experiments in the field. They have the same potential to get dirty as scrubs do, albeit not with blood. They have the same casual look and feel. They are intended to be used in a certain situation and that situation only.
Where should and/or do I wear these clothes? To the convenience store - sure! To Target - maybe. To a restaurant or bar - never! Yuck! Think how out of place I would look with my floppy hat, hiking boots, and cargo pants.
Why wouldn’t someone in scrubs look just as out of place? Only reason I can think is that scrubs are associated with surgeons, and surgeons are associated with money and status. Me, though, I just associate surgeons with blood, and that thought would be enough to put me off my dinner.
The only situation I’ve encountered in which the scrubs themselves are sterile was in my labor & delivery clinical rotation in school. The unit provided sterile scrubs, which students and employees alike had to change into upon arrival and take off before leaving.
I certainly wouldn’t go out with something visibly nasty on my scrubs, and if it were something hazardous, I would change them anyway – one of the first things they told us in school was to keep a spare set handy.
It was touched on up-thread, but so many different people are wearing scrubs these days, for me at least, they have lost the panache of “I just stepped out of the ER long enough to do X.”
I think when household maids (Like Merry Maids, etc) are wearing scrubs, the era of them being “elite” is over. We have two customers that always wear scrub shirts, don’t know what either of them do besides poker. For the record, there are 2 doctors in my husbands family and I have never seen either of them in scrubs. One is an orthopedic surgeon and the other an obstetrician. So it isn’t like neither of them ever have to wear them.
As a Microbiologist, I feel that wearing scrubs outside of the hospital is rude. But I tend to overthink about how many microbes are actually on items. I’m sure they’re fairly clean, but there’s a chance you came across some MRSA, and you may wipe against a counter at the grocery store on the way home, and someone else could touch it. Ok, the odds of this are slim (i.e. poor survivability by microbes on those surfaces, and a slim chance that a healthy person would contract a disease), but still more probable than if you hadn’t worn the scrubs out of the hospital in the first place.
I am going to have to check what happens here in Australia. As far as I can recall I have never seen anyone out in public in scrubs. There are 4 nurses living in the units next to mine and formerly two surgeons lived here. I never saw any in scrubs. When I was nursing many years ago scrubs weren’t part of, or a substitute for, a uniform. You changed into them as needed and got out of them when finished. You chucked them in the appropriate laundry bags and they were sterilized and laundered. No-one owned scrubs to take home.
