All types of nurses have to wear them. They have become the symbol for employees at in healthcare facilities. So much so that these objects of clothing received a television show named after them.
The show and clothing both became icons. Unlike the show, the clothing has been around longer and is not going anywhere anytime soon. Whether you like them or not, they are here to stay.
Scrubs have way too many benefits for hospitals or clinics to want to get rid of them anytime soon. I will go into a couple reasons why below.
Identify Hazards, Bodily Waste, and Potential Contaminants
Scrubs help nurses identify bodily fluids, wastes, and other potential contaminants. These substances can be vomit, urine, blood, stool, saliva, and other fluids.
Many organizations make the nurses wear solid color scrubs to make identifying these substances easier. These strict policies in place for everyone’s safety.
Cleaned Using High Powered Machines
At the end of shift, nurses usually throw their scrubs into a laundry bin. Here they are taken to a high powered washing machine that uses powerful chemicals to clean the scrubs.
They are washed under high temperatures that are meant to destroy any contaminants that might still be within the scrubs. This type of high pressure wash could ruin regular clothing hence why it is reserved for scrubs.
These procedures usually ensure that nurses are always wearing clean scrubs. This is very important to the safety of the nurses, patients, civilians, and other hospital employees. The chances of contaminants being passed around is minimized.
Protect Skin and Personal Clothing
This goes hand and hand with why and how nurse scrubs washed. They are thrown into high powered washing to ensure they always clean and ready for use. Many healthcare facilities take the safety of their workers very seriously. This is why they go through such extreme measures to minimize the chances of germs getting spread around.
To further ensure the safety of the nurses, their scrubs are thicker than average clothing. This makes it hard for germs and contaminants to bleed through their scrubs. This protects their skin and personal clothing from harmful substances.
Protect Patients and Others From Infections
For the same reasons healthcare facilities go to such extreme measures to ensure safety of their nurses, they go extreme lengths to ensure the safety of the patients and civilians that enter the healthcare facility.
Between thicker clothing and high temperature washes, scrubs go a long way in making sure nurses, other hospital employees, patients and civilians stay healthy.
Scrubs Are Cheap
Scrubs are also pretty damn cheap. They inexpensive to replace and maintain. Therefore they can be easily disposed of or replaced if necessary.
They can also be cleaned under severe conditions with few concerns if two or three get torn apart in the wash. Scrubs can always be replaced at little cost to the facility.
So if you ever mess up your scrubs by accident, do not worry. You are not costing your employers much money. Scrubs are chump change to big healthcare facilities.
Easy To Access
Scrubs come with large pockets. This is so nurses can carry around different pieces of equipment such as bandages, IV caps, notepads, smartphones or small tablets, gloves, cotton swabs, scissors, pens, pen lights, and writing utensils.
Sometimes though nurses have specific dress codes that restrict them to certain types of scrubs. Sometimes these scrubs sometimes do not have a lot of pockets. Obviously this makes it hard to carry all your gear.
Easy To Identify Other Nurses
As much as scrubs are for protecting people for germs and carrying handy supplies around, they are also uniforms. Just like fire men, policemen, and paramedics have uniforms. Nurses need uniforms as well so patients and superiors can properly identify them.
In some facilities they wear different colored scrubs to separate nurses from the other occupations in the hospitals. Like the doctors, nurse assistants, and technicians.
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Conclusion
Scrubs. You may hate them. However, they are a necessary evil.
They will protect you, your patients, and co-workers from germs. They allow you carry supplies and stay organized.
Get used to them because they are not going anywhere.