can you wear a white crew neck tee shirt under your scrubs? AORN is not clear.

grimmy, RN · Nov 9, 2005

it is the policy in my hospital that you cannot wear "outside" clothing that shows beyond the scrubs provided by the hospital. that is, sleeves or collars, that can be seen, must not be worn. that said, quite a few of our residents and surgeons frequently break this policy with impunity. if you are cold in the or, you can wear a camisole underneath, a tank shirt with a v-neck, etc. you may be able to find some t-shirts with modest v-necks. we do have jackets provided by our or, and the more cold-prone members of our staff wear them. we also use heated blankets, heated (wrapped) fluids, etc. when the rooms get too cold. keep in mind, however, that room temperatures should never be less than 68 degrees unless specifically indicated by the procedure. under average circumstances (ie, not a cabg or transplant) the pt temp should remain at or above 36 c. in our facility, the anesthesia dept maintains strict control over the room temp for that reason. the reason? maintaining normothermia (for the pt) lowers incidence of post-op infection.

SFCardiacRN · Nov 9, 2005

It is so funny (not) what some OR's obsess on. I wear a t-shirt for the same reasons and think its OK, no different than underwear or socks. My OR has a fit if a surgeon wears scrubs from another hospital but lets the plumber walk through in overalls and boots with just a cover gown draped over his shoulders!

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Nov 9, 2005

We have surgeons that whine about someone's tshirt sticking out, yet they're wearing their scrubs from home straight from home and into the OR.

Ferret · Dec 1, 2005

hah, no hospital that I know of has ever specified what typ of underwear you wear. If you get a short sleeved thermal underwear top, they should not be able to say anything about it, if they do, ask them to stop perving on your underwear!

Ferret :devil:

Balder_LPN, LPN · Dec 1, 2005

We have surgeons that whine about someone's tshirt sticking out, yet they're wearing their scrubs from home straight from home and into the OR.

hmmm, doesnt seem very sterile. Isnt that something to report to QA or somebody?

sweet31eve · Dec 1, 2005

In our hospital we are not allowed to wear a shirt that is exposed from under our scrub tops. We are also not allowed to wear our scrubs home, or launder them at home, etc. However, a lot of us wear our own scrub hats that we make or buy and we take them home to launder. So in other words, we aren't consistant either.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 1, 2005

hmmm, doesnt seem very sterile. Isnt that something to report to QA or somebody?

It is.

It's been months, no reply to the complaint yet. Gee, wonder why.

Ferret · Dec 1, 2005

In our hospital we are not allowed to wear a shirt that is exposed from under our scrub tops. We are also not allowed to wear our scrubs home, or launder them at home, etc. However, a lot of us wear our own scrub hats that we make or buy and we take them home to launder. So in other words, we aren't consistant either.

That's the same in all hospitals here in Australia that I've been in (5). Generally, your scrubs are far more likely to come in contact with patients, blood, and pathogens, then your hats, and are made of a special material (high thread count) and are processed by the appropriate hospital cleaning systems beacuse of that.

As hats are there purely to stop hair floating around the operating theatre, or into a sterile field or surgical site, it doesn't matter what they are made of, as long as they catch the hair, so often they are made of cheap disposable crud. Therefore you can replace them with anything clean that does the same job, namely a cloth hat or scarf that is worn for a day then laundered. It's not really a double standard, it's based on the difference in purpose and use of scrubs v's hats.

Ferret :devil: