The Today Show

Nurses General Nursing

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Anyone watch this morning? Their medical expert was on giving tips to patients on how to prevent errors while they are in the hospital.

One thing she mentioned was that hospitals (nurses especially) need to go back to being more professional. She mentioned nurses wearing caps or at least going back to wearing white in order to be distinguished from other hospital staff. Matt Laur said he had recently been in the hospital and that nurses are dressing much to casually. Hmmmmmm.......................

Specializes in Float.

Interesting the original topic here is med errors..it's incredulous we are discussing uniforms and not something that I find crazy insane...doctors orders that are illegible. This is a topic I've been meaning to ask here. Does ANYONE work at a facility that requires computerized orders? I am in awe all the time that doctors can get away with this handwriting in this day and age of errors and lawsuits...

Of course the staffing issues too. Nurses need to have time to spend with the patient and not be trying to juggle 8,9 etc patients ... no wonder errors are made :(

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Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

Personally, I consider scrubs God's gift to nurses... I am old enough to have worn white and I hated it. The pants made me look like the Sta-Puf Marshallow Man and it was uncomfortable to work in the dresses. I don't mind the notion of color coding various positions, just so long as nurses don't end up in white again!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Pediatrics, Geriatrics.
Interesting the original topic here is med errors..it's incredulous we are discussing uniforms

I have noticed that once you get beyond 10 pages of any thread the topic switches to one of three things: ADN vs. BSN (or RN vs. LPN), the nursing shortage, or uniforms.

Why is that?

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Specializes in Long Term Care.
I have noticed that once you get beyond 10 pages of any thread the topic switches to one of three things: ADN vs. BSN (or RN vs. LPN), the nursing shortage, or uniforms.

Why is that?

Not True.

There are some excellent threads that have a lot of discussion in them concerning the OP's content.

As for the big three, we can discuss those into infinity. Say all the same old tired things and nothing will change because we as nurses do not have the solidarity to form a more perfect union. Consider the AMA as a model for what I am talking about.

We are too busy tearing each other down to support a national organization.

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I have noticed that once you get beyond 10 pages of any thread the topic switches to one of three things: ADN vs. BSN (or RN vs. LPN), the nursing shortage, or uniforms.

Why is that?

You forgot a couple: weight/smoking

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Specializes in NA, Stepdown, L&D, Trauma ICU, ER.
Wow, and here we've been all along thinking the keys to preventing medical errors were things like safe ratios, adequate training and supervision, staffing levels that ensure no one is forced to come in and work while sick, etc. and it turns out that all along the problem has been our SCRUBS! I don't know about anyone else, but I sure feel silly!!!:uhoh3:

:rotfl: :roll :rotfl:

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The issue is not a connection between uniforms and medical mistakes. The issue is that patients and their families say they cannot tell who's who because everyone's wearing scrubs. Yes, nurses have name tags. But not everyone can see them. People interviewed for this study simply said that they'd like to be able to quickly identify who's in charge, and apparently the older-style nurse's uniform and cap enabled them to do that. I don't think Matt Lauer implied anything more.

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The issue is not a connection between uniforms and medical mistakes. The issue is that patients and their families say they cannot tell who's who because everyone's wearing scrubs. Yes, nurses have name tags. But not everyone can see them. People interviewed for this study simply said that they'd like to be able to quickly identify who's in charge, and apparently the older-style nurse's uniform and cap enabled them to do that. I don't think Matt Lauer implied anything more.

Actually both Matt Lauer and Nancy Snyderman made remarks in regards to nurses lack of professional appearance which lead into the white and cap comments. Suggesting patients learn who their nurse would be a better suggestion.

Where I currently work, patient and their families have no problem identifying who an RN is, but rarely do they understand that A nurse is assigned to a patient and not every nurse on the unit knows every patient. It would have been more prudent a suggestion to inform the public that a particular nurse is assigned to each patient and to make a point of knowing who their nurse is, instead of criticizing our professionalism because we no longer appear in the antiquated, sterotyped, media-hyped homoginized faceless and nameless servant known as "NURSE."

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Specializes in GERIATRICS, DEMENTIA CARE, MED-SURG.

Freedom42, thank you so much for pointing out that the original thought of this thread had to do with nurses lack of a professional or uniformed look which makes it easier for patients and family to immediately SEE who the Nurses are.

Though I am not in favor of wearing all white I do believe that there should be some differentiation between Nurses and other staff members, name tags don't do it as they are often to small to be read or have a tendency (like mine) of flipping over so they can't be read. DEFINITELY NOT HATS. Maybe an RN/LPN patch?

We have all worked very hard to get where we are, and deserve to wear our title with pride. The only question here is how to do it so that it benefits our patients and their families.

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As a person who did get frustrated when FIL was in the hospital seizing and everybody and there brother was in scrubs, yet nobody was a nurse or doc...I can say that I do think nurses need to be readily recognizable as do doctors. Easiest way to accomplish that? GET ALL DIETARY STAFF, SECRETARIAL STAFF, HOUSEKEEPING STAFF, VOLUNTEERS ETC... OUT OF SCRUBS OR MEDICAL UNIFORMS! This would help a lot!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Pediatrics, Geriatrics.
You forgot a couple: weight/smoking

:p oh yeah...those are great ones...breastfeeding too....good topics to get anyone all fired up:angryfire

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I think, as usual, it's very hard to grasp a big problem (like health care problems/insufficiency) completely in 5 or 10-minute sound bites on a popular news program that is vying for ratings in a competitive market.

But hey, that's just me, I know.

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