What do scrubs do

Shop All Men's. Community Blog. Clinician Blog. What are Tunneled Catheters? How To Sleep with a Chemo Port. Trending Topics. Home Community. Previous Next. Why Medical Professionals Wear Scrubs. It was discovered that all of the white was very straining on the eyes of the surgeon. So, medical staff began dressing in another color -- green.

Today, you will find scrubs in different colors and even in bright patterns. In addition to relieving eye strain, scrubs of various colors are used to ensure sterility.

When a surgeon comes to work in her street clothes, she changes into scrubs that are clean and sterile. This is essential, as she might be going into surgery or meeting with patients. She can't expose her patients to bacteria and germs from the outside world. Patients need clean, sterile environments and staff to help speed up their recovery. The same is true in reverse.

Scrubs are designed for maximum use and cost efficiency. They are made of high-quality fabric that is both inexpensive and can withstand even the most thorough cleaning process possible.

This means that they can last through years of wash and wear, and are easy to replace. Aside from the exposure to harmful pathogens on a regular basis, they are also the ones who are expected to stand on their feet throughout their shift, work through long hours, lift patients, or move around the clinic for hours on end.

To perform their jobs efficiently, they need uniforms that will give them optimum comfort. Scrubs are designed to help make the job easier for the wearer, with their large pockets and their range of motion.

And, obviously, I'm protecting my family, too. I tried to ask representatives at some major Boston hospitals what their regulations and recommendations were.

Hooper believes encouraging and enforcing hand hygiene is a better way to control the spread of infection outside the hospital. Scrubs are not really about being sterile or protective in any way, Dr. I asked Dr. Hooper if I should give a wide berth to anyone in scrubs I see in public. That was reassuring. At the same time, the American College of Surgeons guidelines do "strongly suggest" no scrubs outside the hospital perimeter. But why? Are scrubs any better or worse at harboring the types of bugs that hang around hospitals causing trouble?

How much of those could you find on a pair of scrubs at any given time? The answer, from the very small number of studies that actually look at contamination of scrubs and all but one studying scrubs worn by nurses, not doctors , appears to be: a lot, and many of those bugs can live on fabrics for days and even weeks. Nurses' scrubs that were tested at the end of a clinical shift tended to turn up bugs, including some scary ones. From a study that tested 10 nurses' scrubs:.