In most of the hospitals, scrubs are worn by the nurses and the doctors. These are worn wore not only in the operating theatre, but also outside. Scrubs is a term used to refer to medical uniforms and these are usually a simple cotton short sleeved shirt worn with comfortable drawstring pants.

Traditionally, scrubs were light green, but now scrubs are getting more and more fashionable and the preference of medical practitioners, nurses, support staff is for scrubs that are colored, printed and even in bright patterns.

Being a medical member of staff in an infirmary is truly a tough job.

Long hours, attending to patients and emergencies etc is stressful. This is why having happy medical scrubs are very important to this line of work. But some people don’t like wearing the scrubs. Opinions vary, some medical professionals do not object to wearing scrubs or uniforms in the hospital, but some find it demeaning.

In fact, since most of the hospital personnel are wearing the same sort of scrubs, it is hard to differentiate the nurses from a doctor or even cleaners. The worst is that some wear it outside of their work place.

Untill the end of the 19th century, even though it is hard to believe, surgeons actually conducted surgeries in their outdoor clothes, over which they donned a butcher’s apron to protect from stains.

In those days there were no operating rooms and large auditoriums like now, and surgeries were performed without any disinfectants and it is unsurprising that most of the patients suffered post surgery infections since the environs were not germ free. The instruments were not sterilized and hands were not washed.

Joseph Lister changed all this with his pioneering use of carbolic acid, which reduced the number of post operative deaths, and then he began operating in antiseptic conditions.

It was around this time that the benefits of a sterile environment in hospitals began to gain popularity. In the early 1900s, the nurses started donning white uniforms but surgeons did not start wearing special scrubs until 1940s.

Early surgical clothing comprised of white cotton attire which changed into green clothing in 1950s. So we can surmise that green medical scrubs are a relatively new development. Now this is losing popularity and colored and printed scrubs are becoming more popular.

If you search the internet you will find that there are many sites selling some of the best medical scrubs at a lower price. Some of the sites offer many trendy choices in medical scrubs. While they offer the more traditional styles, they also offer designs and prints with the wearer in mind.

If you see today, many hospitals use a variety of colors to differentiate between departments, while surgical scrubs still continue to be primarily green.

Pediatric staffs in many hospitals often wear scrubs decorated with cartoon characters.

These help a lot in putting their young patients and their parents at ease. In some hospitals, they require medical office personnel to wear scrubs, too.

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