Should nurses go back to wearing all white? - page 3

1. 
   May 28, '04

   Occupation: Medications Joined: Mar '04; Posts: 197; Likes: 2

   I think that back to white uniforms would be one flu under the cookoos nest, nurse rachet and all that stuff. Shall we start doiing lobotomies again also? I hope not. When a child begins to grow and becomes more like and adult, do you tell the child to be a baby again? I think no.
   
   :spin:
2. 
   May 28, '04

   Occupation: SICU, MICU Joined: Nov '03; Posts: 309; Likes: 22

   Quote from love-a-nurse

   i vote yes to wearing white because this is what i wear 95% of the time to work. moreover, it would be nice if you could go any where and know, for an example, each department can be identified by a specific color. rn-lilac...lpn-green...nursing assistant-blue, etc.

   
   lilac is not my color :imbar i like the solution my current employer has...big red letters on the id badge; rn, lvn, lab, rt, etc.....now if they could get the docs to wear some sort of id!
3. 
   May 28, '04

   Joined: Jun '01; Posts: 132; Likes: 2

   Quote from chaosRN

   NO, NO, NO! As the world's most messy & most clumsy nurse, all my white uniforms would be another color in no time. I just love wearing dark color pants with a printed shirt. Harder to see stains. Just Wednesday, I got bright yellow medicine all over my new white shoes. (I was pushing them down a NGT) :chuckle

   You were pushing your new white shoes down an NGT????!!!!
   
   Sorry, I couldn't resist - I know what you meant - my shoes are multicolored as well
4. 
   May 28, '04

   Occupation: Nurse Practitioner Specialty: Acute rehab/geriatrics/cardiac rehab ; From: US ; Joined: Nov '03; Posts: 647; Likes: 128

   Oh no....not white.... My nursing school uniform was all white.... I'm looking forward to some colorful clothes to go to work in.
5. 
   May 28, '04

   Occupation: Nursery RN Joined: Apr '04; Posts: 105

   Obviously white would easier distinguish us from everyone else, but I am not crazy about it. I do think the idea of having all the "levels" of staff wear different colors though.
6. 
   May 28, '04

   From: US ; Joined: Jan '04; Posts: 3,163; Likes: 1,157

   No, nurses should not go back to wearing white. Besides who wants to be recognized by the patients/visitors "as the nurse". Once they find out you are "the nurse" at the LTC they bug you to death and you can't get any of your work done. :chuckle
7. 
   May 28, '04

   Occupation: SAHM, for now. From: WI, US ; Joined: Feb '04; Posts: 2,574; Likes: 322

   Quote from skanded

   Obviously white would easier distinguish us from everyone else, but I am not crazy about it. I do think the idea of having all the "levels" of staff wear different colors though.

   I agree with everyone on this, that white is too impractical, it goes gray after a few washings... it doesn't fit in with today's nursing.
   I do agree with skanded though. It would help if staff would wear different uniforms to differentiate who is who. It would be hard to make this universal though. Most people still think of nurses in white uniforms, that's a hard mold to break. Every hospital could have a different color of scrubs or whatnot, and tell the patient that PCT's wear one color, nurses wear another, techs wear something else. This could be placed in the patient handbook one receives upon admission to the hospital.
8. 
   May 28, '04

   Specialty: Getting gingerale ; From: US ; Joined: Mar '04; Posts: 6,243; Likes: 1,421

   I really would dislike wearing all white, but I agree about it being confusing. In the last hospital that I worked for, people said they thought the higher ups encouraged all depts. to wear these colored scrubs so it would look like there were more nurses than there actually were! Think about it! But I like my colored scrubs.
9. 
   May 28, '04

   Joined: Apr '00; Posts: 24,611; Likes: 35,449

   Quote from LPN2Be2004

   Sure, if soemone wants to wash them, dry them, iron and starch them, get the stains out, and keep them white, fine i'll wear white. I do not want to spend my off time maintaining that crap.

   you mean you don't wear polyester white????????
10. 
    May 28, '04

    Joined: Apr '03; Posts: 579; Likes: 398

    No. It would feel demeaning, as if I am not professional enough unless I wear a certain color.
11. 
    May 28, '04

    Occupation: Lpn Joined: Oct '01; Posts: 17; Likes: 1

    I work at a LTC facility that requires nurses to wear all white. I've gotten used to it, and I don't have tons of stains all over my uniforms. Its not that impractical. They just got rid of the caps a few years ago. The residents love that we wear white, they know exactly who the nurses are. Same goes for their families and visitors. We are allowed to wear warm up jackets of any print or color if we choose to, which breaks it up a bit. But not many people do. The cna's wear white pants and blue shirts in the colder months, and green shirts in the warmer months. All of the depts have a specific uniform, which makes it easy to tell who's who. And just because we wear all white doesn't mean it has to be boring. I've found a lot of white scrub tops that have different embroidery or styles that make them different, but still white. I have a lot of print and colored scrubs from my previous jobs, but now I"m glad its just white. It just seems automatic now. I don't mind at all.
12. 
    May 29, '04

    Occupation: RN Specialty: 3 year(s) of experience in Med-Surg ; Joined: May '04; Posts: 826; Likes: 47

    Quote from stbernardclub

    Sure, they give you a name badge with your name and title, but I have noticed even those are starting to look all the same.Just what are you all thinking about this.Should we reclaim the "uniform".

    Several years ago the hospital I worked for made a move to change all the badges in the facility to just the first name of the employee and, underneath, the department they were assigned to. That was it!!!!! All credentials were going to be removed, whether you were a med tech, radiology tech, RN, physician, etc... The thinking was that they wanted to level the playing field so to speak and do away with the medical hierarchy... everyone on the same team kind of thing. You cannot imagine the absolute uproar from every credentialed employee of the hospital... Thankfully, admin never followed through on it.
13. 
    May 29, '04

    Occupation: RN, outpt onc/hem unit Joined: Jul '02; Posts: 1,233; Likes: 8

    White is to bodily fluids as trailer parks are to tornados.

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