Eh, my general rule of thumb for any style of dress is that it’s not cheesy if you have a legitimate excuse to be wearing them (for example, just coming from work. You’re not obligated to bring a change of clothes). It would however be cheesy if you put them on purposely to go out somewhere even though you were coming from home and had no real reason to be wearing them.
It’s like wearing an Applebee’s uniform on the street, you just look foolish.
I’m still in nursing school. I wear my scrubs for clinicals and for nursing lab practice. If I have to go to Walmart or some place similar after school, I’ll go in the scrubs. I don’t wear them out to eat or to a bar and I don’t wear them on my days off.
I do know that the first few weeks I wore my official school scrubs to nursing lab class, I felt like an incredible poseur. Maybe by the time I graduate, I’ll be totally at ease.
I’ve worked with both MD’s & PhD’s. The MD’s don scrubs when they’re heading to the OR. Afterwards, they get back into shirts & slacks (or skirts)–under The Ceremonial White Coat. When the PhD’s leave the lab, they dress similarly. Embroidered names & departments, plus ID badges, identify everybody’s places in the pecking order.
Fellows on call might wear scrubs over the weekend.
Just to bend the question a bit, how about “fashion” scrubs? Last week, I saw a guy on the train wearing a black scrub top over black jeans.
I’ve never seen black in any clinical setting. Plenty of the traditional green and blue, pink for the OB-GYN wards and maroon seems popular with the medical assistant school near my office, but never black.
Does this guy work in the morgue, or does he just like loose, comfy shirts?
I live right around the corner from a hospital, so seeing people walking around in scrubs is part of my everyday experience. Many of the nurses at the hospital seem to live in the neighborhood just east of the hospital, and i often see folks walking down our back alley in scrubs. It never even occurred to me that there was anything unusual or “showing off” about it.
“Look at me! I’m an overworked, under-appreciated and possibly underpaid health worker. Don’t you all want to be just like me?”
Sure, doctors who walk around town with stethoscopes dangling seem a bit silly, but i’m sure they also get so used to carrying the things that they often forget they have them. Still not a big deal, in my opinion.
Since the point of scrubs is cleanliness, and public areas are not known for that, if I see scrubs out in the open I assume the hospitals are not as clean as they once were.
Although I must admit I’m not upset seeing nurses uniforms.
There was a fad for wearing scrubs when I was in high school. That was kind of cheesy.
I don’t think it’s inappropriate to wear scrubs to a bar or on errands. I wouldn’t, because they’re not very flattering, but that’s just my vanity talking.
I don’t see a problem with it at all. Who friggin’ cares?
Consider my mind blown. If someone is running errands after work or on lunch break, it seems silly to have to change into a new outfit. But going to a bar in scrubs? How long does it take to change into a regular outfit?
I wouldn’t think of it as weird as much as bizarre.
My wife works at a medical school, and I’m often in the Longwood area of Boston where there are about 12 hospitals. I rarely see people wearing scrubs outside of hospitals, to the point that when I see someone wearing them, I take notice.
To each his/her own, but I find it a little weird. Attention whorish? I don’t know. I don’t assume that a person wearing scrubs is a MD or an RN. They could be doing any number of jobs in a hospital. Furthermore, there’s nothing inherently awe-inspiring about seeing someone in scrubs to me. It’s what you wear at work, like painter’s overalls, or smocks in a tech fab. (I used to work in the fab at Motorola, and nobody ever wore smocks outside of the fab… if you did, you would be ridiculed mercilessly.)
Maybe if there’s a medical-type bar near a hospital goes it’s no big deal, but if people are doing a double take that’s probably a clue that you might want to wear the usual casual clothing next time.
Naa, I don’t see it as attention whorish. But then, my first thought would be “dental hygenist”.
I used to wear scrubs cause they are comfortable and if you get “something” on them , you can throw them away. If they are clean, wear them. If they are dirty, toss em.
I am not so offended by scrubs as I am by watching the docs who wear the same dirty lab coat everywhere. I know they get the coats cleaned from time to time, but here it is…
one wears gloves, coats etc as barrier protection. While you are working, wear the gloves, coat, etc to protect you from the nasties. When you are done, take the gloves, coat, etc off before walking around in the general population.
I don’t think it’s “cheesy” to be seen in scrubs outside a working environment, but due to my training I do think of it as dirty. I work in a highly biosecure environment wherein we change to scrubs in the facility and change out when we go. Our scrubs never leave the facility under dire warnings of the potential of spreading any number of terrible things to which we were routinely environmentally exposed.
Even in a hospital or other setting, I think of scrubs as being either cleaner than street clothes or dirtier, depending on your medical role, and in neither case are they appropriate to be wearing in a public, “civilian” environment where you are eating, drinking, or smoking.
I realize that that’s pretty much completely contrary to the way that scrubs are worn and viewed now, and that everybody and their dog who has an excuse wears them, but there you are. I can’t get away from the idea that the schmuck sitting around the bar in those scrubs has either just come from operating on an ebola-infected patient, or will be going into operate, shortly, and if neither of those things are true, then by extension I imagine they’re dog groomers or day care workers or some other poseur profession who picked up wearing scrubs because they feel elite wearing scrubs 
. I still have a mental view of scrubs as functional, working clothing that’s more than likely going to end up covered in poo, barf, or blood by the end of the day anyway. That’s what scrubs are for. Only, not so much today. Now they’re fashion.
I did have a “clean” job working in a clinic where we were required to wear scrubs and I would sometimes stop at the grocery store or library or whatever on my way home, and I always felt self-conscious about it. Don’t worry! These scrubs are clean!
I just got back from dinner at Applebee’s and I’m wearing red scrubpants and a Monster’s Inc. turquoise/yellow/purple scrubtop. I had a Mag patient, a guarded prisoner and a fresh total hyster for 12.5 hours with 14 minutes for lunch. I needed a meal that wasn’t fast food and no one gave me a second glance. I’m years beyond feeling foolish—I know what I am; an overworked but well-paid RN!
I’ve earned every Hello Kitty and Scooby Doo.
Cyn, RN
As the grandsone of a cheesemaker, I have to ask: do you hate cheese? Or do you love cheese?
But I’m not the grandson of a cheesemaker. So does your question apply to me? Or did you dangle your participle?
There is no participle in my question. And the pronoun “I” immediately follows “As the grandson of a cheesemaker.”
Yes, actually, Walloon used that construction correctly, which few people do.
Anyway, the point of scrubs is not really cleanliness, but utility and comfort. Of course they should be clean, at least to start out, but keeping them that way isn’t always an option. But even so, it’s not like setting foot outside the hospital in them will unleash the plague upon the world. That people might perceive someone wearing scrubs as contaminated didn’t occur to me; I was more concerned about being perceived as a poser. Nursing might not be glamorous, but there are people who find scrubs sexy on par with military or firefighters’ uniforms.
The length of time it takes to change clothes isn’t the issue so much as the hassle of lugging a duffel bag with a whole other outfit, including shoes, into work, storing it someplace, finding a place to change, etc. Like I said, I would certainly do that for a social gathering, but for errands – screw it.
Cub Mistress, be grateful they let you wear scrubs to clinical and the lab. When I was in school, we had to wear these Og-awful uniforms that I swear were designed to embarass us. I also had to walk to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways. 
Something I forgot to say earlier: Congratulations, Licentious Ectomorph, and best of luck in your career. Was yours a BSN program? How was the N-CLEX?