I wear a suit if it's a high end (or wannabe high end) facility and a nice shirt and tie if it's a community homeless care type facility. It all depends on the population you're serving; you don't want to appear over dressed if you're going to pass patients along the way and it's an under served population.
When I got out of nursing school it was a polo shirt and dockers but this is a different market and nursing has come a long way since.
For staff I'm interviewing, the hot date thing is distracting to say the least and I never take them seriously because I can't imagine them working as a dog in scrubs, or that they mean business at all. You don't want to come across as the unit flirt.
Dress as if you're going to court and you can't go wrong.
"Dress as if you're going to court and you can't go wrong."
Perfect! Also extremely good advice for taking into consideration the population you will serve.
I went on a tour of a prison hospital (they've always got vacancies, btw) and I'll never forget one of the young girls was wearing what I would call spike heels; very narrow heels, anyway. She could barely keep up and eventually one of her heels got caught in a crack and she stepped out of the shoe. Naturally this occurred in an area where there were several inmates hangin' around, watchin' the parade.
I'm old. When I was younger, there were such things as work dresses. No one would think you were dressed for a good time in one of them. I suspect these don't exist anymore. I've been resisting buying the suit, mostly b/c I don't want to wear pantyhose and also b/c this is truly a one-time outfit investment. Maybe I can get something suitable from Sears.
Otessa, BSN, RN
1,601 Posts
Nix the high, shiny heels-I hope that was a joke!
otessa