wearing scrubs out in town?

Nurses General Nursing

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Is there a standard for wearing scrubs out in town? I was reading that nurses have lockers in the hospital to change. I was at the store yesterday and there was a lady in scrubs behind me, we gotto talking about nurisng and she worked in L & D and was in her scrubs. I'm not saying that it is wrong or anything, I was just wondering if you can or if you should not do that?

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Specializes in Only the O.R. and proud of it!.

Should it be done? Absolutely not. Is it done? You betcha - you saw that yourself.

Technically, if the scrubs are provided by the hospital for the staff to wear (not all are), then wearing the scrubs out of the hospital is theft. Keep in mind, not all institutions are the same. I have heard of some that require the staff to purchase and launder their own scrubs. I believe that in the operating field (OB, C-Sections, and other types of surgey), that scrubs should be provided by the hospital and laundered by the hospital. Kind of gross (and unsanitary) to get blood/bodily fluids on your person, and bring it home to wash in your own machine.

I am in the OR, and we are provided scrubs by the hospital. When I was in school, if your uniform was soiled, we were supposed to change into scrubs and allow the hospital laundry to remove the blood/bodily fluids from our uniform. I had never encountered that myself.

We have staff that wear scrubs home, but at least they change into clean scrubs after the shift. They also wear scrubs to work (I guess the pair that they wore home the night before).

I think that people wear scrubs as some type of status symbol. (Look at me!! I work in the OR!!) Or, perhaps not, maybe they just feel that it's easier to dress and change.

Floor nurses wear their unifors to and from home/work. They have to. They don't have a place to change (in most cases and places). Many of them use scrubs rather than traditional uniforms. If I were a floor nurse, I'd buy scrubs to work in. And you don't always go right home after work.

Have I rambled on enough? Sorry!!

Good day!

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Eeeew, i wouldn't want to wear my scrubs out in public. I KNOW what i've been in contact with all day, i don't want to take it with me.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

When i worked on the floor, we did not have a locker room per se - we had a room with lockers in it, but it wan't private enough to want to change in (i did when i needed to).

My main thing to change was my shoes. I'd leave those at work after walking all day in a healthy does of "god know what" and also cleaning my name tag with a sani-wipe everyday. I never liked the idea of keeping my scrubs on after a day at work or wearing them home - especially after i found out the the security department not only would get $500 in uniforms issued to them when they started working, but also had a weekly laundry service. We were responsible for buying our own and washing our own.

They did, a few years after i started working there allow us to purchase (hold on to you hat!) 2 full sets of scrubs a year on their tab at a local uniform shop. What generosity!

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Where I work (L&D) we have to provide and launder our own scrubs. Since I live 30 min from work (rural area) and the town where I live is too small to have any shopping places, I will sometimes stop at WalMart or someplace like that on my way home (Yes, in my scrubs). It's not because I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that I'm a nurse, it's just that I don't really feel like packing an extra set of street clothes when I go to work. It's not like I go anywhere soaked with blood or body fluid; if I get in the way of a body fluid spill, I change into fresh scrubs (and wash the affected area) as soon as possible while I'm still at work. I will say that back in my Med/Surg days I used to go straight home from work, strip off my scrubs and get in the shower, but in L&D we don't usually get as many nasty bugs as M/S, so I'm a little more lax.

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I'm still a student so there's no way we're allowed to go around town with our scrubs and I wouldn't really want to. yes it might be easier not to go through the locker room and carry them with me but just thinking about the amount of germs...:barf02: I have a locker, I bring all my scrubs in the begining of the week and after each day I bring the ones that I had on home to wash. We have to buy our uniforms and now that i'm in third year I can wear scrubs (I just bought two more ;) ). It's a bit weird here because nurses don't really have to wear uniforms. they can come to the unit with their street cloths as long as they have some identification on them. I don't like it at all, not very professional in my opinion but what can you do.

Have a great day !!

pumiky

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I see people do it all the time. I especially get paranoid when I eat in a restaurant and a few tables away someone (sometimes more than one) is wearing scrubs.

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Where I work (L&D) we have to provide and launder our own scrubs. Since I live 30 min from work (rural area) and the town where I live is too small to have any shopping places, I will sometimes stop at WalMart or someplace like that on my way home (Yes, in my scrubs). It's not because I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that I'm a nurse, it's just that I don't really feel like packing an extra set of street clothes when I go to work. It's not like I go anywhere soaked with blood or body fluid; if I get in the way of a body fluid spill, I change into fresh scrubs (and wash the affected area) as soon as possible while I'm still at work.

:yeahthat:

I'm in LTC.

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If I need to stop somewhere on the way home from work, I have my scrubs on. When I worked for hospice, co-workers and I almost always went out to lunch--in our scrubs. I see many dental workers out for lunch in their scrubs. I currently work in a prison and many employees there (non-medical) wear street clothes, but I'm sure they get thrown spit, fecal matter, semen, etc. at them and they too make stops. There are probably all kinds of non-medical people that have really icky stuff on their shoes and clothes. Visitors at hospitals don't change there before going anywhere else. When I worked at the hospital, I was more cautious about wearing my shoes/uniform places, but I also lived 10 minutes from work. We don't make hospital visitors change their shoes/clothes after their visit and they've usually stepped on the same floor as us. That being said, if I step in a visible puddle of something, I don't go anywhere!!!!!!!!! I also don't wear my shoes in the house.

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Specializes in ED.

It is done a lot, I wouldn't do it though. I'm a student and we have a lot of classmates who work in health care and wear their scrubs to class after working all day. Gross. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to bring a change of clothes to work and put your scrubs in a bag to take home to wash. I don't think it is appropriate or healthy to wear scrubs that have been around who knows what all day to another setting.

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Best idea I've seen (in an environment without a proper changing/locker room) is wearing scrubs a size or two too large over light street clothes. Put 'em on at work, take 'em off before going home. This solves the problem of sanitarily juggling 2 sets of clothes in a bathroom.

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Scrubs should not be worn outside the hospital. Microbology 101.

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