My husband sent me an email yesterday with an excited “Check this out!” in the subject line. I clicked on the link and it was pictures of contemporary nurses, working and wearing nurse’s caps. Apparently my husband thought (as had I) that the wearing of caps in the workplace had died out some time ago.

It made me think about not only caps, but uniforms in general. Back when I was in nursing school the first time, our uniform was an uncomfortable and unforgiving white dress with a blue-edged pinafore. White hose only, and proper nursing shoes. I remember when I put that scratchy thing on, I felt like an imposter—like I was playing dress up in someone else’s clothes. But when we started our clinicals, I saw lots of nurses wearing the traditional white dress and I thought, “Ok, that’s how it goes I guess.”

Fast forward almost 20 years when I entered nursing school again. This time, our uniforms were white scrub pants, white scrub tops, and sensible nursing shoes. Still no caps, of which I was glad, but also no more dresses. It’s amazing how easy it was to bend, move, and lift wearing the nice, baggy scrub pants the school was now allowing. And while all the nurses I saw were in scrub pants and not in dresses, I could count on one hand how many actually wore white. Instead, scrubs have bloomed into lots of different colors and patterns.

After graduation, people joked that they would burn their nursing school scrubs. They wanted the freedom to choose their own clothes, and to step away from the white which in many minds during school, came to symbolize ‘student’ rather than ‘nurse.’
I guess I am different because I kept my scrub uniform, and wore it until there were one too many stains on it to justify its continued use. Even now, I wear white pants almost exclusively at work, and my tops are generally solid color and low-key.
Local hospitals have been establishing dress codes recently, in order to better allow the patient to understand who is the nurse and who is, say, the environmental service provider, seeing as everyone wears scrubs. So far my hospital isn’t quite on the bandwagon yet, although there was a pilot involving the colors white, black, and khaki. Now, however, we are just wearing really big badge clips with RN or LPN on them, and that seems to suffice.

I personally feel that the color white is associated with medicine, and that we should take ownership of it. Doctors, NP’s, PA’s, Residents…they all have white lab coats. Nurses are the only medical professionals who are traditionally associated with white pants. Sure its hard to keep clean, and sure they get dirty easy—but that’s why they are scrubs and that’s why they are inexpensive and budget friendly.
Me, I will be in whites until the day I retire. I’m even thinking of buying a cap, just for fun.

Scrubs at Nurses Station