Wearing Scrubs Outside of the Workplace

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I just wanted to post a question to see what others think of wearing scrubs outside of their place of work. I live in a small town about 30 minutes away from the hospital I work at and sometimes after work I try and get some errands done in the city before driving home. I do this so I don't have to make another trip to the city on my days off. I have a locker at work but it's just big enough to fit a purse so I can't even bring anything to change into after my shift. I would love to hear any opinions people have on this topic!

I prefer not to shop around in scrubs if I can help it... which needless to say, cant always be helped (without the massive inconvenience of first going home and changing after about 13 hours of exhaustion). I suppose my biggest qualm with wearing scrubs in public is the image I portray while in them. Sounds silly, but if I'm buying a six-pack of beer at 0800 in my scrubs (night shifter), I feel super guilty. For one, the "uniform" is colored in very "hospital specific" colors - so I'm likely representing my workplace in a poor light... and also, it seems somewhat hypocritical walking around with beer in an outfit which suggests that I would be telling you to do otherwise. Needless to say, I only stop when absolutely necessary... and at the smallest (least populated) places possible, lol.

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I prefer not to shop around in scrubs if I can help it... which needless to say, cant always be helped (without the massive inconvenience of first going home and changing after about 13 hours of exhaustion). I suppose my biggest qualm with wearing scrubs in public is the image I portray while in them. Sounds silly, but if I'm buying a six-pack of beer at 0800 in my scrubs (night shifter), I feel super guilty. For one, the "uniform" is colored in very "hospital specific" colors - so I'm likely representing my workplace in a poor light... and also, it seems somewhat hypocritical walking around with beer in an outfit which suggests that I would be telling you to do otherwise. Needless to say, I only stop when absolutely necessary... and at the smallest (least populated) places possible, lol.

The moral of this story is, buy your beer a case at a time.

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The moral of this story is, buy your beer a case at a time.

Exactly! (hehehe!!! :roflmao:)

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I prefer not to shop around in scrubs if I can help it... which needless to say, cant always be helped (without the massive inconvenience of first going home and changing after about 13 hours of exhaustion). I suppose my biggest qualm with wearing scrubs in public is the image I portray while in them. Sounds silly, but if I'm buying a six-pack of beer at 0800 in my scrubs (night shifter), I feel super guilty. For one, the "uniform" is colored in very "hospital specific" colors - so I'm likely representing my workplace in a poor light... and also, it seems somewhat hypocritical walking around with beer in an outfit which suggests that I would be telling you to do otherwise. Needless to say, I only stop when absolutely necessary... and at the smallest (least populated) places possible, lol.

Put a jacket over your hospital scrubs (if they, like mine, have the name of the hospital emblazoned over your left breast) and buy your beer at 8AM with panache. You've earned it.

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Yes, thanks. I scrub the peaches very well. Again, we are not talking about lay people. We are talking about hospital scrubs contaminated with a blend of MRSA, VRE, VRS, and who knows WHAT drug resistant organism yet to be discovered.

MRSA, VRE etc. exist in the community, and you should know that as a "prudent nurse"

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Specializes in Psych.

It kinda grosses me out, but just because I let my mind wander. The truth is, the people around us, shopping, may have just wiped their butts and not washed their hands while they are tapping those cantaloupes and shucking that corn. And when I see other people in scrubs, I need to remind myself that housekeepers, vet techs, dental staff, and receptionists who never do patient care sometimes wear scrubs. My particular job can involve suctioning and respiratory fluids, so I either throw a lab coat on over scrubs if I have to go in a store or really, really, try to go home and change.

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Also day care workers, primary care front desk workers, and various other jobs.

Taken from a similar thread in 2006, posted by "Kasper1014":

"I am an infectious disease nurse. You can NOT spread TB through your scrubs!!! LOL TB is spread through airborne droplets. And UV light and sunlight DOES kill TB. It is also harder than you think to spread TB."

I am completely aware how TB is spread. That example was certainly not the best of what can be spread via funky scrubs. I just remember that, because the staff, and the state administrators were FREAKING out. The point is, professionals never know what is on their funky scrubs and what transmission could occur.

Is it REALLY that difficult, to change into clean clothes.. before entering the general community environment. from the germ laden hospital environment?

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MRSA, VRE etc. exist in the community, and you should know that as a "prudent nurse"

Yep, prudently.. I know that the community is running rampant with those bugs.

Prudently, I am not going to risk adding the massive amount of organisms collected on my HOSPITAL scrubs to the mix. Hospital acquired and community acquired diseases are two different things.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Yep, prudently.. I know that the community is running rampant with those bugs.

Prudently, I am not going to risk adding the massive amount of organisms collected on my HOSPITAL scrubs to the mix. Hospital acquired and community acquired diseases are two different things.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, they are generally the same pathogens.

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I do not know about you all,but as a woman I find scrubs to be an effective man repellent while running errands after work.

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Is it REALLY that difficult, to change into clean clothes.. before entering the general community environment. from the germ laden hospital environment?

Nope, I did it this morning before I left my night shift and met my friend for breakfast. Of course, I changed back into my clean scrubs that I wore to work the previous evening; my assignment last night required that I change to hospital-issued blues. So, I went out for breakfast wearing my *clean* scrubs and chuckled to myself about this thread and wondered how many people in the restaurant were gagging into their Wheaties.

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So... I live fifteen minutes from work and we do shift change at 0600-0700 and 1800-1900 (depending on your position). There's a Walmart, a Kroger, a Sam's Club and dozens of restaurants less than ten minutes from the hospital (and I live fifteen minutes from work).

Every day between 0600-0800 and 1800-2000 it looks like the businesses near the hospital announced some kind of discount for wearing scrubs (they didn't despite my constant prayers) because that's nearly all you see. It's pretty clear that a good deal of the staff are running errands before if after work.

It's actually my favorite time to shop because people getting ready to go to work are in a hurry and don't want to small talk and people just getting off work are exhausted and don't want to small talk.

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