Would you quit over white uniforms?

If your facility went back to white uniforms for licensed nursing personnel, would you quit? Just wondering as I've heard discussions about some facilities going back to all white for nursing staff.

Nowadays it's hard to find a job. To quit over a color of fabric is foolishness. Be glad you have a job.

Specializes in Rehab, Hospital, Travel Nurse, VNA,.

Of course not, that is silly.

Specializes in PACU, OR.

Ooh - nastiness creeping in. I'm so glad menses are no longer a problem for me. My heart truly goes out to my colleagues in Theatre who have to stand, sometimes for hours at a time, without the opportunity for a toilet break. Fortunately for them, many of the theatre smells mask any unpleasant odours that might start to emanate from an over-full sanitary towel... Even more fortunately for them we don't wear white scrubs.

Specializes in Emergency, Correctional, Indigent Health.

When I was a nursing student they brought in a male Director of Nurses. One of his first edicts was to demand nurses begin wearing nursing caps again. I was one of seven male nursing students that year, and although exempt, the female nursing students were required to wear their caps. I was stunned that the cap was considered part of being a good nurse. So all the males went out and bought the Nursing school's cap. Whoever designed these caps was not an engineer. They hardly stayed on a woman's head, let alone a man with short hair. We had researched the cap and found it to be remnant from the time before Nightingale, when prostitutes were the usual nurses as they had seen naked men before, and would not be scandalized doing it as a profession. The main purpose of the cap was to keep the head lice which were very common back then, from dropping onto the patients.Using this prerogative we petitioned the DON to reconsider his edict to return caps to the profession as an form of ID for nurses. It didn't work until it just became another thing that was eventually just not followed as it was just not functional in a modern nursing context.

White uniforms are almost as bad. Trying to keep these clean during a hard day in the life of a nurse was always a difficult proposition, and I threw out many a white uniform stained with charcoal in an ED scenario. Specific colors for specific hospital staff doesn't work either as we went to purple in the ED at one time, and I looked like a walking grape. Then we found out that black uniforms showed more then white did at times, beside being depressing, and whole papers have been written about wearing red uniforms in some emotional scenarios.

So why can't we just have really big ID badges that says REGISTERED NURSE?

Interesting that this topic is *still* drawing comments. *LOL*

Last night sat watching television and on comes a commercial that has been playing in the NYC market for some time now. It is for a local for profit school that among other things offers a medical assistant "degree".

It begins with a good looking young man strutting out before the camera wearing immaculate blue scrubs and a scope slung around his neck saying "my patients look to me as a hero....." and on it goes. As the spot extolls the various and prestigious benefits of being a member of the "exciting healthcare community" it cuts to other "medical assistants" wearing equally immaculate blue scrubs with scopes slung around their necks performing various nursing related functions (taking BP, handling vials of drawn blood (implication that the MA drew it?), and so forth. The set is all calm and cool bluish tinged and you get the idea these medical assistants are more nurses than assistants.

Am willing to bet that most patients and or their families at any hospital seeing these MA's strutting around in scrubs with a scope around their necks I'd be hard pressed to tell they were not nurses or even doctors. In fact here in NYC you cannot get away from adverts from for profit nursing assistant/medical assistant featuring smiling faces of persons dressed in scrubs and often with a scope somewhere on their person. The message is quite clear and is an intentional blurring between UAP and professional nurse.

What began as a solution to scrub envy to some has gone too far in that now almost everyone and their mother in hospitals or other medical settings are running around in scrubs. At least back in the days of whites (with or without caps) you knew who was who and what was what.

Yes, many hospitals here do have "RN" embroidered on scrub tops and or stamped on ID badges but that isn't always of assistance. With an aging population comes poor eyesight. Not everyone can see what is printed on scrubs or an ID tag especially from a prone position and when they aren't feeling 100%.

Yes, we got it, people don't like caps and have invented hundreds of scary reasons why they should be banned. Nil of which nil stand up to research but we're not on that right now. Like it or not whites and in particular a cap is probably the only legally defined way of telling who is and isn't a licensed nurse or at least student.

Equally cannot understand all these comments about the difficulty of keeping whites clean. If we could do it back in the day don't see what the problem is today. Laundry products and washing machines have vastly improved since even the 1980's which means in theory it should be easier to keep things clean and white.

Specializes in PACU, OR.

Yeah well, now you're not talking so much about uniforms as distinguishing devices. My country still uses the old epaulettes to designate an RN, except in theatre. Regardless what colour uniform the nurses are wearing, the RNs wear maroon eps. Used to be the ENs wore white eps and the ENAs had distinguishing badges, but in an ever-increasingly PC conscious and consequently petty world, these have been phased out. I personally think it was a dumb, unnecessary move, and remains proof positive that those charged with making decisions on our behalf are not always the best qualified to do so.

Ah, the sweet smell of logic!

When I was a nursing student they brought in a male Director of Nurses. One of his first edicts was to demand nurses begin wearing nursing caps again. I was one of seven male nursing students that year, and although exempt, the female nursing students were required to wear their caps. I was stunned that the cap was considered part of being a good nurse. So all the males went out and bought the Nursing school's cap. Whoever designed these caps was not an engineer. They hardly stayed on a woman's head, let alone a man with short hair. We had researched the cap and found it to be remnant from the time before Nightingale, when prostitutes were the usual nurses as they had seen naked men before, and would not be scandalized doing it as a profession. The main purpose of the cap was to keep the head lice which were very common back then, from dropping onto the patients.Using this prerogative we petitioned the DON to reconsider his edict to return caps to the profession as an form of ID for nurses. It didn't work until it just became another thing that was eventually just not followed as it was just not functional in a modern nursing context.

White uniforms are almost as bad. Trying to keep these clean during a hard day in the life of a nurse was always a difficult proposition, and I threw out many a white uniform stained with charcoal in an ED scenario. Specific colors for specific hospital staff doesn't work either as we went to purple in the ED at one time, and I looked like a walking grape. Then we found out that black uniforms showed more then white did at times, beside being depressing, and whole papers have been written about wearing red uniforms in some emotional scenarios.

So why can't we just have really big ID badges that says REGISTERED NURSE?

Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
It begins with a good looking young man strutting out before the camera wearing immaculate blue scrubs and a scope slung around his neck saying "my patients look to me as a hero....." and on it goes. As the spot extolls the various and prestigious benefits of being a member of the "exciting healthcare community" it cuts to other "medical assistants" wearing equally immaculate blue scrubs with scopes slung around their necks performing various nursing related functions (taking BP, handling vials of drawn blood (implication that the MA drew it?), and so forth. The set is all calm and cool bluish tinged and you get the idea these medical assistants are more nurses than assistants.

Now I know why I shouldn't wear white. I would see this ad, puke, and get my scrubs dirty. :barf02:

You get it...DoGoodThenGo!

Great post!

Honestly, I've thought about this question many times. What I have all but concluded is that while I probably would never have entered nursing if nurses were required to wear white, I probably would not quit. Frankly, as depressing as the thought of wearing white is, I need to be able to pay my bills.

Nope! No doubt it would take some getting used to (laundry routine, appropriate undergarments, etc) but I'd work with it.

Caps--maybe, if the bobby pins consistently gave me headaches. Definitely would line another job first.

I would not quit

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