What's your dress code at work?

[Nola009]

Are you "color-coded" like we are at my job or can any staff member wear whatever scrubs they want? At my job, we nurses must wear ceil blue while others, depending on their department, wear maroon, navy, dark green, light green, or royal blue. The idea is that other workers and the patients and visitors can easily recognize what each person does --- even from far away. I'm sure there's truth to that, but still.

[Twinmom06, ASN, APN]

the only color coded in my hospital is housekeeping...everyone else can wear whatever print/color/style scrubs

[~PedsRN~, BSN, RN]

We are color coded, but by pants. RNs have black pants, and we can wear any color (or print) top. We are a Children's Hospital.

[loriangel14, RN]

We wear whatever we want.

[MLvb52789]

I can see the benefits to having color-coded staff within hospitals... But on a personal level it's a bummer because you don't have any freedom to wear fun prints/express yourself.

Then again, I guess one could work in a practice and wear whatever they wanted

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

Nurses, clinical engineering and OT/PT wear black. Aides wear teal, X-ray wears navy, housekeeping wears gray and secretaries wear black and yellow.

We we look like a flock of crows at meetings. Peds and NICU tried to petition to wear black pants and colored tops, but no go. And the ones of us that wear hospital laundered ones hate them, fit terrible, wrinkled and faded.

No no tshirts or long sleeves, all black scrub jackets.

[CelticGoddess, BSN, RN]

We are color coded in my division. Lab, Radiology, and Resp aren't color coded yet. They will be soon. Nurses wear black or Black and White. Except for mom/baby, NICU and L&D. They wear lavender.

I used to work for a facility that the nurses wear Galaxy Blue, and respiratory wore, get this, snot green. Actually, it was a sage but really?

ETA: We are allowed to wear solid white or black long sleeved shirts under our scrub tops and on Fri, they are generous. We get to wear T-shirts with the name of our facility on them. (Or the name of the cancer center, as I work ONC)

[No Stars In My Eyes]

Pretty much any civvies, tho' a lot of folks wear scrubs.(PDN) I wear something clean and tidy, but not fancy or 'fashionable'. Don't wear bluejeans unless I've known the pt. a while, or if the weather is crappy/cold. But I have sand colored jeans or tan chinos or navy blue pants. Depends on the patients temp preference/tolerance for heat or A/C whether I wear just a blouse/shirt, or if I add layers like a turtleneck +/or henley. Pretty casual compared to years ago. I graduated when white uniforms and caps were de riguer and anything like (ha) a "pants-suit" was scandalous and could get you SENT HOME!

[MunoRN, RN]

I don't get how this is something that helps patients/family know who's who. It would take me some time to remember what each color means and that's with working there and being there almost every day, I don't really see how patients or family would be likely to understand the color coding system while they are there.

[Loo17]

I don't get how this is something that helps patients/family know who's who. It would take me some time to remember what each color means and that's with working there and being there almost every day, I don't really see how patients or family would be likely to understand the color coding system while they are there.

Idk regardless where I am in the hospital I hear people shrieking "nurse!" as I walk by...the color coding must work :-p

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

We used to be color coded, but now it's anything goes. It's nice to be able to wear what you want, your favorite colors or something cheerful. They even have days when you can dress up to cheer your local sports team!

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

We went color coded a few years ago. Problem is somebody at the corporate level with too much time on their hands decided to change colors on us about a year ago or so! I had boatloads of the required navy pans/ugly print top. Now the CNA's wear all navy so at least I was able to give all my pants to one of the CNA's to save her some money. Now we are ceil blue and since I have a bunch of that color now I guess they'll probably change again soon and make me buy a whole new color. We can get scrubs through work, they'll supply 2 sets a year and 4 sets for a new hire, but the ones through work are cheap and don't fit hardly anybody right so most of us just buy our own. We do also have casual Friday where anything within reason is ok. Of course casual Friday pretty much means casual weekend since nobody from management is there on weekends except a designated manager on duty and they have never complained about staff not following dress code on weekends. Gives me a chance to wear fun scrubs a few days. I could wear street clothes those days, I just don't like to for work.

[anon456, BSN, RN]

I work peds and we are allowed to wear whatever we want, as long as it's tasteful and kid-appropriate.

For some reason about 2 years ago we did away with the badges that clearly say RN on them. Either we need to have that badge back or we need to go color coded. Even I can't always tell if a person is an RN or an RT or a CNA.