Should nurses return to wearing uniforms?

LOL...everyone at our hospital is allowed to wear scrubs...it just amazes me when the lady answering the phone at the front desk is in scrubs. Our X-ray and Lab departments have just added a white lab coat to their uniform so they can be easily distinguished from housekeeping and dietary! I think that no one, other than medical personel, should be allowed to wear scrubs...point blank. If housekeeping is concerned about getting their clothes messed up, they can find some other sort of uniform...there are all kinds of pants and tops and smocks and aprons out there!

Our nurse managers want us to come up with a plan to get uniforms a little more uniform and to help people easily recognize who is an nurse, who is housekeeping, etc. They already told us that taking everyone who is non-medical out of scrubs is NOT an option. So...nurses are going to be forced into one color or pattern...what fun!

For the past 20 years I have worn street clothing in all my nursing jobs. I do not think that a particular color, cap, pins etc. defines who nurses are - it is our professionalism that makes the difference.

1. 18 years
2. Acute. ICU
3. Major city hospital - Australia
4. BSN with Post Grad Cert
5. NO! No and NO.
I used to have to wear cotton scrubs when I worked in a hyperbaric facility. That was for safety reasons. They were comfotable but any time i stepped out of the unit I always felt like I was waering pyjamas
Scrubs are OK if yu work in theatre. There is a good reason to there.
Elsewhere I find uniforms stifling. I think sometimes people in ER (or ED as we call it here) like to create a 'team uniform' for all medical and nursiung staff. It is also a away of creating an us and them distiction between patients and staff. In the time i worked in ED I found that a lot of objectification occurred. The uniform can be a barrier to hide behind. Having said that I was greatful to be wearing a uniform that I could readily change the night a patient vomited a bag a of charcoal all over me.

The argument that uniforms help the patients identify nurses from other staff doesn't work in my experience. Even in the days when I wore a uniform patients frequently assumed I was a doctor. I attribute this to the fact that I'm male.
As a male I have learnt that the best way to communicate the fact you are a nurse to patients is not by relying on uniforms. They don't work.
I introduce myself at the start of the shift with something like.."Hi I'm Rob and I'm your nurse for the next shift." I find that introduction more than any other 'visual communication' is both more effective, as well as being more professional.

Historically nurses uniforms have been oppressive in my opinion. When I started training 18years ago the girls had to wear an old fashioned chambermaids uniform complete with starch collars and cuffs. For the mature age students they found the uniforms both uncomfortable, impracticle and humilliating. The efforts the girls had to go to get even a modern uniform was immense but in the endthe end the hospital had to give in and let the girls wear pants and tops like the males,so as not to be discriminating.

Not long after that the hospital moved away from uniforms alltogether when it realised that it could save all the money on laundering uniforms.

But some nurses don't dress professionally I hear soem argue.You will always get some nurses who won't dress professionally I agree. I believe this is an issue that any unit manager worth their salt can handle at a ward level. The whole notion of uniforms I find oppressive, and there are always soem in the hospital hierachy who like to keep nurses in their places.

6. Smart casual clothes with a namebadge clearly visible, clean shoes, and a friendly face. Nothing too overtly sexual. Low hipster pants with a thong ( G string) showing when you bend over is not going to do anything for your male patient's acute angina. For guys without beards I think it's important to be cleanly shaven when at work, as much as I hate shaving.

That's my 10 cents worth. Hope it's what yo wanted.Interesting topic.

I like wearing company scrubs.....no laundering on our parts. NO expense. And only nurses wear them where I work. works for me.

1. How long have you been a nurse? ADN Student, graduating May 05
2. In what field of nursing are you working (i.e. long term care, acute care, rehab, etc.)? Plan to work in cardiac intermediate unit
3. Where geographically are you located? Atlantic Coast
4. What is your level of training? (i.e., ADN, LPN, CNA, BSN, masters or higher education level, CNP, CRNA, etc.) ADN Student, prior work as EMT and CNA
5. Do you think nurses should return to wearing a uniform? Why or why not?
6. If you think nurses should return to a uniform, what type of uniform do you think nurses should wear? I agree with the all white statement...it shows too much. Our nursing uniforms at school are all white, with a white pinafore (spelling?) with a blue strip down the sides. Many patients (esp. older patients) have told me they like our uniforms. However, my classmates and I are having a uniform burning party after pinning! Clorox has become my friend. Many of the units I have worked on require RN's to wear something specific (blue tops, anything with hearts ok, blue or white pants- for example on the cardiac unit). The peds unit and the ED were ok with fun stuff. However, I am a firm believer in a limit of jewelry. I've seen an RN in the NICU with huge earrings from her ears, hair in braids, denim scrubs, and holes all in her face from piercings. I DO NOT believe this is appropiate- it looks tacky, and unprofessional. It doesn't make you less of a nurse, but in the public's eyes, it may make you less. Furthermore, it's dangerous for yourself. If that RN were holding a baby, and the baby got hold of an earring??? OUCH!!!
-Andrea

Thanks so much for your help!!!

--Heather

***edited to add a bit of clarity on 10/08/04[/quote]

That's true, but how does the public tell the difference? Just this week-end my husband had an appt. at a hospital for an Ultrasound, C.A.T. scan and endoscope. Upon arrival we see a lady in scrubs sitting in the waiting room gabbing with a person with street clothes. She was there for 30 minutes or so. Her name badge too small to read. My husband said to me "I don't know why an R.N gets paid that much money, I've never seen them do anything!" Now she wasn't acting professional, but my own husband truely thought she was a "nurse". (I finally found out later she was a "House-keeper." )
When he went in for the U.S, He thought the tech was an R.N, after all she was professional. The receptionist at the lab dept, was in scrubs, he thought she was an R.N. My point is that most are proffesional, but how do we distinguish? Those little name badges , which many get turned around, do not help in the majority of the confusion to "Who is my nurse?"

I thnk that Nurses should return to wearing a uniform, and I'm not sure that our caps shouldn't be part of this uniform.
I have been Nursing for over 30 years and have seen a change in professionalism of staff. I think that we were proud to be a Nurse, and got the respect from the Public, as well as Doctors.

1. I have worked as a nurse for 9 years.
2. I currently work in the ER/ED.
3. I practice in NY state.
4. I am an RN with my BSN.
5. I am not in favor of a return to whites, hats or other "uniforms" unless it were perhapse hospital-supplied scrubs or jump suit for infection control purposes. I think that scrubs are practical, easy to launder, easy to move in, modest and professional. Traditional white uniforms were once practical in times before modern laundering methods when bleaching was the easiest way to maintain a neat appearance in frequently laundered clothing.
I would attribute a lack of professionalism in nursing to a general shift in our culture at large. To talk to seasoned nurses, before the 1970's entering nursing school was almost like going into the convent or Bible college. Curfews, rules about dating, dress codes and other archaic devices that perhapse also fostered a sense of vocation. Today's nursing education seems to focus more on nursing as a profession (which it certainly is). But a profession with poor staffing, brutal hours, weekends and holidays does not feel very "professional" without a sense of vocation. Uniforms may be symbolic of that sense of vocation, but they are not the answer.

1. Three years

2. ICU

3. NC

4. BSN

5. Yes, I think that nurses should have a uniform just for them. In my hospital CNAs, housekeeping, radiology techs,dieticians, etc. wear scrubs. You can't tell that someone is a nurse unless you are close enough to read their ID badge.

6. I don't think that we should go back to white caps because that would not be practical today with all the men that we have in nursing. (THANK GOD!) Working around too much estrogen can get old. But I do think that the uniforms should be white. We should look immaculately clean and professional.

1) Eight years
2) Med/surg
3) Pacific Northwest
4) ADN, Certified Medical-Surgical Registered Nurse (CMS-RN)
5) & 6): NO WAY!! I think it's the housekeeping and other ancillary staff that should be taken OUT of scrubs......not nurses! I'm all for looking professional, but it's possible to do so while wearing an outfit that is both comfortable and practical. I myself would quit before I'd go back to whites, especially dresses.......I need to be able to bend and stretch and move freely if I'm to take proper care of my patients, and I don't want the evidence of what I've been doing all day visible all over my clothing either (even if it's just eating a bowl of vegetable soup!).

No caps, no dresses, no whites, no thank you.