To cap or not to cap!

Nursing Students General Students

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I would love to hear feedback and/or opinions from other students on the whole nursing cap issue. I am graduating in May....Yeah! and there's a lot of controversy around the wearing of the nursing cap for pictures and pinning ceremony. In previous year's (including this one) a majority of students have voted to wear the cap and the nursing instructors have just said, if some of you wear them then all must wear them.

I fully support the students who want to wear the cap. I realize that it is personally meaningful to them. It's not to me and I feel it should be an individual decision. Everyone says that it would look weird if some wore it and some didn't. I don't agree. At our school the insturctors don't wear them and of course the male students don't. Just wondering how other students feel about this issue.

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.

I think they look great! The style of that cap is actually different then what my mom graduated with ages ago. What is the significance of the different color stripes? The only one I know of is red as that's what my mom got when she was "certified".

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
I think they look great! The style of that cap is actually different then what my mom graduated with ages ago. What is the significance of the different color stripes? The only one I know of is red as that's what my mom got when she was "certified".

Thanks! The significance of the stripe is that it's the graduate stripe. Each school has a different color or different stripes. Before we completed the program we had the same color stripe but it was on the left side of the cap. When we graduated we got the graduate stripe that is how you see it in the pictures.

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Specializes in Maternity & Well Baby Nursery.
I really enjoyed your pictures too! Thanks so much for sharing them! I think you look terrific! Congratuations! Do you know what kind of nursing that you want to practice?
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Specializes in Looking for a career in NICU.

I agree that it's paying homage to a tradition of the profession. I hate caps, but would proudly wear one at graduation.

Not wearing a cap when you graduate from nursing school would be like graduating from any other college with your gown and not your cap.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
I really enjoyed your pictures too! Thanks so much for sharing them! I think you look terrific! Congratuations! Do you know what kind of nursing that you want to practice?

Thanks! I am probably just going to stay on Med-Surg for a while (I'm a CNA for the past 4 years on a post surgical unit in acute care) but I plan on going on for my RN and then working L&D and then NICU when I have been working a while. At least that is what I think I want to do! LOL!

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Specializes in 5 years peds, 35 years med-surg.

I was sorry to see the cap go. Now no one knows who the nurses are from dietary, housekeeping and other departments. I was proud to wear my cap, but the new younger nurses worried about it messing up their hair. Now they wear long hair that hangs down over the pt....long nails that can scratch, and dirty sneakers. Yes, I'm old....and darn proud of it, but at least I looked and felt like a nurse when I worked.:nurse: :nurse:

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
I was sorry to see the cap go. Now no one knows who the nurses are from dietary, housekeeping and other departments. I was proud to wear my cap, but the new younger nurses worried about it messing up their hair. Now they wear long hair that hangs down over the pt....long nails that can scratch, and dirty sneakers. Yes, I'm old....and darn proud of it, but at least I looked and felt like a nurse when I worked.:nurse: :nurse:

Granted I just graduated so I never had to wear the cap during clinical, but all of my instructors came from the era that did and up until 10 years ago, at our school, the students were required to wear their caps once capping took place. I am going to be 40 in a few months but the majority of our class were early to late 20's and they all opted NOT to wear the cap after capping. WE had the choice and majority ruled. But we DID wear it for graduation. As for me, I understand the confusion about not being able to tell nurses from the other people dressed in scrubs etc. I have worked for a CNA for 4 years, even through nursing school. In our hospital Dietary doesn't wear crubs, but a sertain color shirt and pants, the house cleaning people have to all wear the same outfit and of course nurses, CNA's EKG techs etc all wear whatever scrubs they want. I have mistakenly been called Nurse many times and always correct the patient ASAP. Anyways.....got lost there I guess! LOL!

When I go to work, my hair is up in a bun, my shoes are polished, my scrubs pressed and my nails clean :-) All stuff I did before, but that was firmly etched in my mind in nursing school! :-)

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Specializes in LTC, med-surg, critial care.
I was sorry to see the cap go. Now no one knows who the nurses are from dietary, housekeeping and other departments. I was proud to wear my cap, but the new younger nurses worried about it messing up their hair. Now they wear long hair that hangs down over the pt....long nails that can scratch, and dirty sneakers. Yes, I'm old....and darn proud of it, but at least I looked and felt like a nurse when I worked.:nurse: :nurse:

I wore a cap to graduation, wondered how women functioned with that monstrosity during a busy working day (God bless them!) and was grateful it only had to be on a few hours. I wear my hair neatly back every day, pin the pieces that don't stay put, when it gets really long I wear it in a bun or braid. I cut my fingernails down once every two weeks and don't wear polish. I wear minimal make up. My scrubs are always pressed, my shoes are always clean (either white New Balance or black Crocs with no holes) and my badge is always displayed and easy to read. Rarely is there a problem figuring out I'm the nurse because unlike housekeeping I inform my patients and their family that I am the nurse for the shift, I also present myself differently because I was taught as a nurse to hold myself a certian way. I don't need a cap to do that for me. Yes I'm young, a nurse and proud of it. I look, feel and act like a nurse when I work.

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Specializes in Adult ICU/PICU/NICU.
I would never wear that hat. It harkens back to the days when women were wearing aprons too. There is absolutely nothing professional about it. If you want to get sentimental about a piece of linen and cardboard on your head, then go to a photography studio afterwards and get your picture taken. All the hat does is push nursing back to the "handmaidens of the physician" days. Remember those good ol' days, when they didn't even have polio vaccine?

The nursing cap evolved during the Crimean war. Florence Nightingale and her nurses were not able to wash their hair everyday, and the cap helped keep their hair out of the way of providing treatment for the wounded. It was early infection control that Nightingale helped revolutionize.

As for not being professional, this poster has no idea what it means to nurses of my generation. I worked hard for my cap. It is a symbol of my accomplishment and I earned the right to wear it. Each school of nursing had their own cap, and a nurse could be identified as to where she trained based on her cap. You want to talk unprofessional, lets talk about nurses showing up to work in wrinkled street clothes vs a nurse who takes pride in her appearance by wearing a crisp white uniform and a cap.

I retired after 54 years in nursing last July and I wore my cap every day I worked, except for a brief time in the early 80s when the cap started to go out of fashion.I tried to wear some scrubs. They were not me, not my personality...and I never felt professional without my whites and my cap. As an LPN, I could never be the charge nurse. However, many families assumed I was the head nurse or in charge because I was the one with the cap.

A lot of young new grads felt the same as this poster does and made similar statements to me when they started working with me over the years. After I explained to them what I explained to this poster, they certainly had a new respect for the cap and a new understanding of why I chose to wear mine. I think that nursing schools have made great improvements in many areas, but one area that is lacking is showing respect for generations that paved the way for the current one. The quoted post is evident of that lack of respect and understanding.

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I was really sad when I found out my school doesn't do anything with the caps. I was really looking forward to wearing the white dress and cap for pinning like most other schools do in my state :( All we get are white lab coats. I'm not in med school, I don't want a darn white coat! To me white coats = white coat ceremony during med school.

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I'm a first year nursing student in the Philippines and already we have to wear the all white dresses and keep our hair in a bun. We get pinned and capped our second year. Once we start our clinicals we will be wearing all white with an apron, white stockings, shoes, and cap. I know it seems a little old fashioned, but I actually can't wait! :nurse:

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http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y41/1blue2pink/

Here is a link to my grad photos.

You look so good with your cap!

I'd really like to see the cap as a tradition for graduation like how everyone wears a cap and gown for graduating anywhere else.

I wouldn't mind at all if my school required the girls to wear a cap for graduation :cool:

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