No more fun scrubs

[EJBNeuroRN]

It was recently decided at my place of work that the staff is to change to all one color scrubs, for example, RN's are navy blue, PT is royal blue, LPN's are eggplant...and so on.

The hospital thought it would increase patient satisfaction because they would be able to tell what discipline is assisting them by just looking at the color of their scrubs.

The union is up in arms because we are letting the hospital decide what we wear and how do they reimburse us for all the scrubs we already own. The hospital did respond by giving each staff member a predetermined amount of money to use to buy scrubs based on hours worked.

What are some thoughts about changing to one color scrubs? Has it happened at your hospital? Was it well received or fought by the union?

I'm going to miss all my colors, patterns, and prints. I may have to go out and buy hot pink crocs!

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

I worked in a place which even tried to mandate the color underwear we were allowed to wear. There was no shortage of docs lining up to be part of the panty patrol. It all lasted a few days and then reason prevailed.

[DixieRedHead, ASN, RN]

Although it happened to me. It's the dumbest thing I ever heard of. We could wear navy, white, or both, but no prints. Supposedly so the patients and families could identify nurses. Of course they forgot that all members of nursing wore navy and white. CNAs, all floors. Nobody could tell who was and wasn't a nurse, and of course they continued to ask the housekeepers for pain meds.

I was in triage, a well dressed woman came, interrupted the triage process by knocking directly on the "Nurse First" logo. She, very well spoken, said "I'm here for my mammogram". I said "This is the Emergency Room." At which point she stamped her foot and said "I didn't even know what this was."

Well dang, Lady if the 4 foot high, lighted, red letters didn't give it away, what else could we have done?

And this is the woman who is supposed to be able to identify her caregiver by the color of her pants.

I wear white.

[JJRN09]

The hospital I work in is colored coded, but we are allowed to wear printed tops as long as they have at least 50 percent of our color in them. RNs wear royal blue so finding prints is not too difficult. The patients still refer to the CNAs in burgundy as nurse right along with the lab techs in purple, so I don't think color coding makes much difference even with the signs hanging everywhere telling them what color everyone wears.

[nurse2033, MSN, RN]

I think all the cute, colorful prints are unprofessional. Color coding is decent idea but usually poorly implemented. And since every hospital has a different scheme most patients are oblivious. One thing I like is that the staff knows who is who during a code, for example. Unless there is a sign on the wall in every room that shows the patients who wears what color, they usually don't notice.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

You actually get reimbursement for your uniform purchase??

Unheard of here.

I know a nurse that could not wear the designated color because it had a lighter colored embroidery on the pockets.

Look at the bright side of this!

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I didn't like the change at first, I went from a hospital that we wore what we wanted to know we have to have color coded ones and embroidered scrubs. It hasn't been bad at all. In fact it has a lot of pros, we are free to get whatever style and color we want, just has to be the color.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

Be happy they are giving you an allowance, even if it only buys 2 sets. Our hospital is purchasing ours, but they have to be laundered there, no more wearing them in and out of the hospital. We are changing back to solids after wearing whatever we wanted for several years. We will be allowed to choose from 3 print jackets to wear, but the scrub tops and pants themselves are solid. If you desire to wear a shirt under the scrub top, it has to be white. Shoes can be white or black.

I will say that some people push the line at what they wear...some just want to look cute and wear long sleeve tshirts with cargo pants, other people just don't care and wear icky yucky need to be replaced scrubs, others have no color sense at all and what they have on looks like Picasso barfed it up on a canvas.

Where my hubby works, the nurses are in all white, no matter wear they work. No colored jackets, nada.

And honestly, if the union only has this bone to pick over scrubs, you must work in a perfect place, because where I work, non union, we could find lots for them to fix lol

[MK84]

When I applied to nursing school my family made me promise not to wear printed scrubs. No problem. As a PT I always thought they were unprofessional. So excited to wear the same thing every day to work! No thinking about clothes.

[sharpeimom]

in the psych hospital where i worked for ages, we had rns and psych techs on the floors. techs wore jeans with white polo shirts with the hospital's name embroidered on them, and rns wore docker-style slacks in navy or tan with navy or tan polo shirts also embroidered with the hospital's name. we all tended to wear wild colored and patterned socks with athletic shoes of varying kinds.

i still wear my tops under sweatshirts and sweaters!

a way around buying cheap cheesy-looking tops from their supplier, is to buy some good ones online and take them to a commercial printing,

embossing, and embroidery business along with a sample of their top and they'll embroider it only it will look nicer and hold up better.

[twinkletoes53]

i worked @ the same pediatric hospital for almost 35 years. i always introduced myself and wrote my name down when family arrived. i worked in our nicu for 30 years. some uniform changes we went through:

[color=#ee82ee]**in the begining, all nurses wore white, and a nursing cap. i liked these. they looked professional. but they showed every single stain you spilled on them @ work.

[color=#ee82ee] **we then went to scrubs provided by the hospital. you came to work in your street clothes, and changed when you arrived @ work. reasoning was that nurses could not wash their scrubs in hot enough water to sanitize them, and the hospital could. thanks for saving my uniform and laundry bills, but these scrubs were ugly. they had mustard-colored pants and a printed top with brown and mustard colored leaves. one year, one of the nurses wore a pair to a halloween party. she'd drawn brown lines down the pants, and came as a tree. nurses would stash pairs of scrubs in their locker, b/c you never knew when you arrived @ work if your size scrubs were available that day. working weekends was terrible, b/c of course scrubs were delivered from m-f only.

[color=#ee82ee]**th en the hospital decided that we could wash our scrubs at home, but went to all one color; different for each dept. nurses were in burgundy.

[color=#ee82ee] **then, they decided we could wear simple printed tops if we wanted to; all the pants remained one color. i can't remember what.

[color=#ee82ee]**finally they decided that since this was a pediatric hospital, it was ok to wear tops with different designs. your scrub pants remained a solid color, and you could choose what color you wanted. i had tops with prints, babies, angels, flowers, color-coordinated patterns, etc. you were supposed to wear your name tag 100% of the time. of course, patients couldn't see your name and department b/c the tags are so small.

and now, thankfully, i am retired. :thankya:

[VICEDRN, BSN, RN]

Before I became a nurse and when I was a patient on the OB floor, it drove me crazy that I couldn't tell the difference between one type of worker and another based on what they wore and those little itty bitty name tags.

I also agree that all the cute scrub prints look unprofessional. People just push the envelope and its not everybody but unforunately, its enough people who look ridiculous that it reflects badly on everyone.

Our hospital requires white scrubs. We get no clothing allowance whatsoever but I am still glad we are all in color coded attire.

[CCRNDiva, BSN, RN]

We are required to wear royal blue and white and our shoes must be solid white or black. No prints at all. They provided 2 pairs of scrubs (the cheapest set of course) when we switched over. Their thinking was that patients would complain that they did not know their nurse was so requiring us to wear the same color would solve the problem. Well guess what? The hospital neglected to inform patients who wears what so patients continue wonder "who is the nurse" and our patient and employee satisfaction scores have continued to drop since the change was implemented 5 yrs ago.

I am personally against color coding for nursing staff. Has anybody stopped to think that if nurses had better patient staffing ratios, patients and their families would know who their nurses are? Every night I begin my shift by introducing myself to my patients and their families and writing my name on their board. I wear my name badge with my title every night, yet I am routinely asked if I am a unit clerk (whol wear khaki), CNA, LPN (we don't use LPNs or CNAs in our hospital), etc. Clearly, royal blue and white scrubs is not solving the "problem". Now the hospital is thinking of printing biographies with our pictures to post in our patients' rooms. I find it difficult to find shoes to get me through a 12 hr shift but I'm supposed to narrow my search to all white or all black shoes.

The biggest part that bugs me is that we are supposed to be college educated professionals. What other profession is identified by the color scrubs or clothing they wear to work? These hospitals would never dream of telling a physician what color scrubs or shoes to wear to work. We have had nurses reprimanded for having embroidery on their scrubs or color on their shoes, yet I can't tell you how many physicians come in wearing jeans (I've even seen shorts on the weekends).