Socializing after work in your scrubs

Nurses Relations

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Yuck! Who does this? So my husband and I are on a long weekend in Taos, NM. Friday night we were at a local bar listening to a band. In walk a group of women in their mid-twenties. They appeared to have just gotten off work, as they were all wearing scrubs. They hung out at the bar for several hours, drinking, shooting pool, dancing, flirting with men. Wearing their scrubs. Yuck! Of course, after having a couple beers, myself, I was tempted to approach them and ask if they knew how gross and unhygienic that was, but I'm not a big person, and these women were all somewhat large and could have broken me like kindling, and luckily I hadn't had so much to drink that I was that foolish (my husband, of course, bet me $5 to say something to them).

All I could think of all night was fomites!

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Why wouldn't people just change back into their street clothes, then go out? I don't understand why that's an issue. You've been cleaning up poo, pee, blood, vomit, you've been in isolation rooms....other people don't need to be exposed to that.
Most hospitals do not provide scrubs or the areas to change and store belongings, at least in my experience unless you're OR. our ER and ICU nurses used to be able to wear the hospital scrubs, but not anymore. So even if they changed, they would still have to transport their scrubs home to wash, and where would they keep their clothes?
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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

my neighbor wears pink scrubs with pink crocs everywhere she goes: shopping, drinking, dancing, and i believe i saw her dressed that way once at church. she's not a nurse. in fact, she's not even employed. anywhere. (she has back issues that prevent her from being gainfully employed but allow her to go dancing, do a little gardening and re-arrange her furniture every few months.) my point is, how do you know these folks were nurses going out after work? these days anyone can wear scrubs.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
my neighbor wears pink scrubs with pink crocs everywhere she goes: shopping, drinking, dancing, and i believe i saw her dressed that way once at church. she's not a nurse. in fact, she's not even employed. anywhere. (she has back issues that prevent her from being gainfully employed but allow her to go dancing, do a little gardening and re-arrange her furniture every few months.) my point is, how do you know these folks were nurses going out after work? these days anyone can wear scrubs.
well, when walmart sells them for less than $10, what do people expect? wish we could bring back the days when people could tell who was a nurse because they were wearing scrubs, not everyone and their brother wearing them.
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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
wow, i never knew i was in the minority here. :cheers:

i have gone out for liver rounds after a long 3-11 shift more times than i could count. i have gone to breakfast after midnights and had a beer (or two). even when we wore white, we just didn't wear our caps ;) , when we went out after work. i have gone to the grocery store in my scrubs on the way home to pick up something up for home. trust me if i have been peed, pooped, bleed or puked on i have already changed into surgical scrubs before i left the hospital. i've even interviewed for a job after nights, in my scrubs because i didn't have time/energy to change due to one crisis or another.

i know that my scrubs and the bottom of my shoes are cleaner than and shopping cart handle or bar stool.:eek:

just to think....i have been unprofessional all these years.......i had no idea..:smokin:

i'm with you -- but if you wore whites out, or to work, you must be a dinosauer like me, and everyone knows that we don't know anything.

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
my neighbor wears pink scrubs with pink crocs everywhere she goes: shopping, drinking, dancing, and i believe i saw her dressed that way once at church. she's not a nurse. in fact, she's not even employed. anywhere. (she has back issues that prevent her from being gainfully employed but allow her to go dancing, do a little gardening and re-arrange her furniture every few months.) my point is, how do you know these folks were nurses going out after work? these days anyone can wear scrubs.

if you look at my op, i never actually said they were nurses. i actually don't believe they were nurses. but i'm just going to keep my assumptions to myself because i already got myself into enough hot water in this thread. :)

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Specializes in Med/surg, Quality & Risk.
Why wouldn't people just change back into their street clothes, then go out? I don't understand why that's an issue. You've been cleaning up poo, pee, blood, vomit, you've been in isolation rooms....other people don't need to be exposed to that.

"Change back"???? Uhhh I wear my scrubs out of the house. I don't get dressed so I can go to work and get undressed and vice versa. If you're grossed out by scrubs stay away, all the better for my public experience. I'd hazard a guess that the average baby's orifice on the shopping cart where people slap their eggs and bread has as many germs as my scrubs do.

Do you put your hands, arms and body into the urine, vomit, blood and feces? I'd hate to work with you. And OMG to think that nurses as recently as...what, 20, 30 years ago? cleaned up urine, vomit, feces, started IV's, etc. without even wearing PPE!! OMG are they all dead now? No, they're at my hospital, bragging about it.

On a side note, my friends and I solved the professionalism problem by answering "competing hospital" whenever a bar patron asked us where we worked. Then we told them we had to leave because we had to be in surgery in 2 hours.

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Amazing coincidence today, and totally (almost, sorta, kinda) true. After my evening run I went to Walmart in my somewhat sweaty sweats (hey, they're called that for a reason) and bumped into a fellow nurse who was wearing her scrubs (ACK!!). Ever mindful of the radical element of the fomite sect, I quickly donned my N95 mask and nitrile gloves as we passed a safe distance and said hello. I knew she was up to something from the strange look that she gave me. Anyway, after exchanging pleasantries I beat a hasty retreat and sprayed down myself and my merchandise with the Lysol that I always carry with me.

As I was leaving the store I thanked my lucky star that I'd come prepared. One false move in there could have seriously contaminated that 20 pounds of manure I was picking up.

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
Amazing coincidence today, and totally (almost, sorta, kinda) true. After my evening run I went to Walmart in my somewhat sweaty sweats (hey, they're called that for a reason) and bumped into a fellow nurse who was wearing her scrubs (ACK!!). Ever mindful of the radical element of the fomite sect, I quickly donned my N95 mask and nitrile gloves as we passed a safe distance and said hello. I knew she was up to something from the strange look that she gave me. Anyway, after exchanging pleasantries I beat a hasty retreat and sprayed down myself and my merchandise with the Lysol that I always carry with me.

As I was leaving the store I thanked my lucky star that I'd come prepared. One false move in there could have seriously contaminated that 20 pounds of manure I was picking up.

Well, thank G-d you stayed safe.

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Specializes in nursing education.
i don't see why a nurse after work in scrubs is any grosser than a business person who's shaken hands with 30 people, been on two air planes, and pulled his pants down to poop in 2 public restrooms in the period of a day... Yes, we visibly encounter grossness. But there is a lot of very transient, invisible, virulent, transmissible stuff out there too. If you're that opposed to germs, you're the one who should consider avoiding the bar- germs aren't limited to people in scrubs.

I am laughing so hard at this!!!

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Specializes in Med/surg, Quality & Risk.
Amazing coincidence today, and totally (almost, sorta, kinda) true. After my evening run I went to Walmart in my somewhat sweaty sweats (hey, they're called that for a reason) and bumped into a fellow nurse who was wearing her scrubs (ACK!!). Ever mindful of the radical element of the fomite sect, I quickly donned my N95 mask and nitrile gloves as we passed a safe distance and said hello. I knew she was up to something from the strange look that she gave me. Anyway, after exchanging pleasantries I beat a hasty retreat and sprayed down myself and my merchandise with the Lysol that I always carry with me.

As I was leaving the store I thanked my lucky star that I'd come prepared. One false move in there could have seriously contaminated that 20 pounds of manure I was picking up.

LMAO, I was going to ask you if your bodies collided and created a new superbug and/or released botulins into the air and killed everyone around you, until you specified that you took the necessary precautions. Bravo!

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workingharder, I'm glad you were prepared. I wasn't as prepared one day. No N95 mask. No nitrile gloves. I grabbed some lysol on the cleaning products aisle, but it was too late. I died. I am a fomite victim. And to top it off, I was arrested for shoplifting. When should I report it to the board of nursing? And do I need to tell them that I'm dead?

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workingharder, I'm glad you were prepared. I wasn't as prepared one day. No N95 mask. No nitrile gloves. I grabbed some lysol on the cleaning products aisle, but it was too late. I died. I am a fomite victim. And to top it off, I was arrested for shoplifting. When should I report it to the board of nursing? And do I need to tell them that I'm dead?

Well you'll have to change your address.

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