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.

I'm another old fogey who started out in real "whites" and had no problem with it. In my experience, nurses got taken a lot more seriously and treated with more respect back when we looked like we expected to be taken seriously.

However, I disagree with you about the pantyhose -- although I'm not wild about them in general, I've always worn support pantyhose when working floors, because my legs feel so much better at the end of the day!

Do you feel like nurses were respected back when you started because of what they wore, or because the patient was not "The Customer" and hospitals were more about curing what ails and comforting what cannot be cured vs. HCAHPS scores and bribing patients with meal-trays after cafeteria hours and narcotics on demand?

Specializes in nurseline,med surg, PD.

When I graduated from nursing school nurses wore white dresses, white stockings, white nursing shoes and caps. That was just the way it was and nobody whined. The dresses had to be ironed. The shoes had to be polished. The caps had to be washed, starched, and ironed.

Specializes in LTC Rehab Med/Surg.
No. The problem would be self-correcting as people with well water, body fluids, etc. ruined the white uniforms and guests complained that theirwaiters and maids looked dirty, lol

I'd rebel and wear leopard-print man-thongs, though.

:roflmao: One of the reasons white has been eliminated where I work is, as the rumor mill goes, is that we're too stupid not to wear red underwear. Or polka dots. Or thongs.

I find that more insulting than forcing me to wear a mandatory color.

Specializes in nurseline,med surg, PD.

Plus the dresses had to be ironed, the shoes had to be polished, caps had to be washed, starched, and ironed.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
No. The problem would be self-correcting as people with well water, body fluids, etc. ruined the white uniforms and guests complained that their waiters and maids looked dirty, lol

I'd rebel and wear leopard-print man-thongs, though.

We have specific color uniforms, nurses are ceil blue thankfully. I would however love to hear the whispering about your leopard man-thong..I wonder if anyone in management would have the balls to talk to you about it?

Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
Doctors have all the power and earn about 50 times as much as we do. We should all be down on our knees kissing their doctor bums and thanking them for letting us do all the work on their behalf.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of white uniforms. There is something to be said about how medical staff is treated and the "double standards" that there are for nursing staff. However, white uniforms certainly isn't one of them. In our ER the doctors have 2 choices: professional street clothes (i.e. tie and lab coat) or black scrubs. No doctor has ever threatened to quit over their dress code.

Yes I would! I don't look cute in white. It doesn't bring out my shape either.

I like dark colors like blues and purples.. I look really cute in purple.

If I don't look cute!

I can't work..so Yeah Goodbye Job.. Hello mom's house.

I actually liked wearing my white nursing school uniform. I looked smart, and professional, unlike what I wear now. I would quit my job for other reasons, like I'm in the process of doing now.

I think the white scrubs symbolize the notion that nurses are chaste/virginal and that's just disgusting to me. I'm perfectly capable of wearing whatever color clothes I choose without people having to be scared and disapproving that I may be an adult person with a normal sexuality. I'm for whatever color scrubs you want to assign me, but not if it's based on something weird like that. I mean, how about making nurses all wear red scrubs to indicate that most of us have menses? Ugh.

Where do people get these ideas from? The white uniforms started around the same time physicians switched from dark frock coats to white coats for sanitation purposes (nothing to do with anyone's sexuality). Nurses prior to that time also wore dark uniforms, and nurses and physicians wore the same clothes over and over, day after day, and no one had any idea what stains and bodily fluids were in the dark fabric. The switch to white coats and uniforms for physicians and nurses went along with other radical breakthroughs like handwashing.

Meh, no, I wouldn't quit, but like QuietRiot says, my cuteness factor would plummet, which would be a shame. For everyone.

Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

No, I wouldn't quit although I agree with No Stars In My Eyes about pantyhose. Never found a brand that didn't either bag or have a waistband so tight it nearly cut me in two by the end of the day. When I started nurses still wore white, but since it was the '70s they were generally made out of godawful spongy polyester. Their only saving grace, if you could call it that, was that they were opaque.

I would quit over being required to wear a dress, But I didn't back in the day when I was.

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