Own uniforms or hospital scrubs?

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

I am a neonatal nurse who works in a Special Care Nursery. My job also is to attend all deliveries and c-sections. We now wear hospital scrubs, but the hospital wants to cut costs and have us wear uniforms into work. I would like input from those RNs who have tired this. How will it work when you need to attend an emergency C-section? What if your uniform gets contaminated? Does infection rate go up because of outside germs coming into the unit? Is it ok to wash your uniforms with household wash? Do you wear cover coats at all deliveries? Input needed. thanks Cheri

We've done both but currently are wearing our own scrubs from home. When we have sections we put on a sterile gown over our scrubs. Our only function in the section is to assist with the newborn and I have had to circulate in an emergency. I wash my scrubs separately and am very aware of the need for cleanliness and the possibility of infection. Considering the condition of some of the hospital scrubs we use to have I personaly think the scrubs I take home, wash and wear back to work are much cleaner than the ones the hospital use to supply. Not to mention the fact that I am clean, pressed and professional when I leave home.

We do wear hospital scrubs if we get dirty.

We all wear shoes from home don't we? I'm much more concerned with what may be on the bottom of my shoes than what's on my clothes.

Rie

Then why not just wear jeans and a golf shirt into the OR? That's what I wear TO work every day before I change into scrubs. What's the difference between that and wearing scrubs that you've worn in from home into the OR?

The point in the OR is infection control. It's not a question of what gets on YOU, it's a question of what YOU get onto the instruments, the patient, and what YOU bring INTO the OR environment. That's why there is limited access to the OR - infection control. That's why there's that red line on the floor as you enter the controlled access part of the OR.

Mmmmmmm no.

My work shoes stay at work. The shoes that i wear home are specifically for between work and home. I have a rubber mat on the driver's side of my car that those shoes go on, and i take a Clorox wipe and wipe off the foot pedals after i get out. The shoes are kept in a plastic box right beside my front door and i slip them off before my feet even touch the carpet.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, you're kidding, right?

You think the floors in the hospital / OR are really any different than your average sidewalk / parking lot / shopping mall / lawn ? Hell, in theory they should be cleaner, since they're mopped several times a day with high-powered cleaners.

And if you're that concerned about it - why would you not change shoes before you got in your car? Then you wouldn't need to go to the trouble of cleaning the pedals with clorox.

I can understand not wearing work shoes in the house (although I could care less - I don't eat off my floor) but at a certain point, it really doesn't make any difference.

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, you're kidding, right?

No, i'm not kidding. It's my own choice to do what i do. And at least it's not like i'm wearing my scrubs from home into an OR and attempting to rationalizes its cleanliness by wearing a sterile gown over top.
No, i'm not kidding. It's my own choice to do what i do. And at least it's not like i'm wearing my scrubs from home into an OR and attempting to rationalizes its cleanliness by wearing a sterile gown over top.

Yes, it is your joice to do what you do. It's also the choice of each facility to make rules and do as they see fit. No two hospitals are the same even in infection control. I am simply following the policy of my facility and so far we haven't had any problems with it.

As it is your opinion wearing scrubs from home is inappropriate, it is my opinion that cleaning the pedals of your car is a bit over the top.

To each his/her own....that's what makes the world go around.

we wear hospital -issued scrubs. partly due to the fact we do our own csections. i think that is the best way to go...and saves ME $$$$$$$$$$$$. I like that.

Yepper...that's what we do.

Besides, I go to work and change...then after work, I leave all the patient's germies right there and let someone else wash them and kill the bacteria, etc. I don't want to take germs to my kiddies, my car, my home.

We've done both but currently are wearing our own scrubs from home. When we have sections we put on a sterile gown over our scrubs. Our only function in the section is to assist with the newborn and I have had to circulate in an emergency. I wash my scrubs separately and am very aware of the need for cleanliness and the possibility of infection. Considering the condition of some of the hospital scrubs we use to have I personaly think the scrubs I take home, wash and wear back to work are much cleaner than the ones the hospital use to supply. Not to mention the fact that I am clean, pressed and professional when I leave home.

We do wear hospital scrubs if we get dirty.

We all wear shoes from home don't we? I'm much more concerned with what may be on the bottom of my shoes than what's on my clothes.

Rie

No...any and all shoes which I take to work and which go in the OR or pt's rooms, stay at work. When their useful life is over, they go in the trash.

I have at least four pair of shoes which I use for (or will use for) work. And once they have been "baptized" in germs...they stay where those germs are: work.

Changed several months ago from hospital scrubs to wear-your-own-from-home scrubs. No increase infection rates thus far. Doubt there will be!

I loved the no cost part of hospital scrubs, but is surely is nice to wear some colors now and then besides a 'barfy-celery-green'!

:chuckle

Hospital-issued scrubs in the OR is IMHO a sacred cow. In the OR that I used to work for (now I work down the hall in PACU), you could either wear your own or the hospital's, most people picked the latter. Maybe I just like to stand out but I liked to bring in my own, and cloth caps too.

I would like to see some hard data as to whether hospital-issued scrubs have any bearing on infection control. My guess would be "no", as long as whatever scrubs you are wearing are reasonably clean. As far as shoes go, who would want to wear shoes that they wore to work out of the hospital? Not I! But are we operating on people on the floor?

Besides, people eat/go to other floors/take a cigarette break/whatever, in scrubs, which frankly negates any benefit to wearing hospital scrubs in the first place. That being said, I don't do anything special to eat, and certainly don't do anything special if when I go to another part of the hospital (contrary to popular belief the floor & general environment in the OR is not any cleaner than the rest of the hospital, in fact, probably dirtier!) but to go outside for a smoke I cover up in a gown and shoe covers. It is, after all, the great outdoors.

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