Here is my disclaimer before discussing the issue of health care workers who wear scrubs in public. I have a great deal of respect for all health care professionals. They perform tasks and have careers in an area that is completely foreign to me. I have only crunched numbers most of my life as a job and fully understand that to care for a human’s health is very difficult work. The other thing I would like to mention is that I understand that sometimes people are pressed for time, I really do. As I will mention though this is no excuse for the dangerous behavior of wearing scrubs in public.
I have wanted to blog about this for a long time but recent events have forced my hand to do it now. I have been noticing an increasing number of hospital workers wearing scrubs in public. I see this at the grocery store, in office buildings, and even in restaurants from time to time. I was in Boston on Thursday and at the Charles/Mass. General Hospital stop on the Red Line subway I witnessed at least 5 people exiting the train and 5 people entering the train wearing their scrubs. Yesterday I was at the local 7-Eleven and two people wearing scrubs were there pouring coffee and grabbing donuts.
Why am I so concerned about this? I have many good friends that work in hospitals in various roles. I hear stories from time to time about the toxic Armageddon of fluids and vapors that these garments face on a daily basis. Without getting too graphic scrubs are under constant assault by various projectiles, spatter, viruses, and germs.
After speaking with my friends and searching for this subject on the internet I have seen a few arguments that try to defend this behavior. The most common is that whether a person wears scrubs or street clothes there is the same chance of germs on each. I dismiss this out of hand. Scrubs are only worn in certain areas and are in direct contact with patients. Street clothes are not worn in this way. The other argument I hear is that they are being worn on the way to work because the person doesn’t have time to change. This one is problematic because hospitals have special laundry ingredients to clean these that are designed specifically to kill germs. If an employee is wearing scrubs on the way into work they more than likely had those same scrubs on on the way home the previous night.
In an age of swine flu, bird flu, SARS, or whatever else is the pandemic du jour is, why wouldn’t hospitals have policies that their employees can not leave work with their scrubs? This would make it so easy. (In my web searches unbelievably I found some message boards with doctors who purposely wear their scrubs to bars after they get out of work to try to pick up women.)
Another late disclaimer is that I am certainly not a germaphobe or neat freak at all. People that know me will confirm that. I am a person that sees toxic behavior by a growing number of health care professionals to be unacceptable.
A comeback I expect to hear is that scrubs definitely do not carry diseases or germs. What I would argue is that even if it is all a matter of perception why wouldn’t the hospitals use this tool of perception and not allow this? Over the last week I have been behind a scrubby in line while buying food at a grocery store, poured coffee at 7-Eleven after a scrubby, and sat next to a scrubby on the subway. For all I know I am under attack at the microbe level because of a lack of either hospital policy or statewide regulations. It may be time to contact my local legislator!
I look forward to some comments about this, especially if you are a health care professional. Maybe I am not considering something or being too critical. If so let me know! Have you noticed scrubs being worn in public? Does this bother you?
It almost seems like Colin Hay from Men At Work is singing this song to me from an episode of Scrubs! Notice how even on TV this behavior seems acceptable.
Bravo Curt! I am so glad that you bring this issue to light. I work in the health care field and I agree with everything you have written. I think that the hospital needs to provide every employee with an area to change from their “outside clothes” to their work clothes. Each floor or unit should provide a locker to protect their personal items. I understand that an argument is any clothing can carry germs, etc. However if your changing out of the dirty scrubs and putting on cleaner clothes, then you may not spread germs to the general public. I think that people need to take responsibility and change their dirty scrubs. I will just leave you with this thought, have you ever had C-Diff? It is spread through contact. Check it out.