Posted on 10/12/2004 9:43:17 AM PDT by Willie Green
Who's the nurse?
Is it the person who walks into your hospital room wearing a blue tunic and picks up your meal tray?
Is it the one in a patterned tunic who asks you to breathe into a device to check your lung capacity?
Is it the one in the shirt sporting cartoon characters who takes you down the hall for a hospital test?
Or is it the one in the pink pastel jacket changing your IV?
What nurses wear has become a hot issue over the last couple of years as hospitals in Georgia, Texas, Illinois and other hospitals around the country have started to ditch the colored and decorated scrub tops to return to the white uniform....
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
I have always thought that each member of the hospital staff should wear a "white based" uniform with a badge that has a picture ID, full name, title and department displayed. It should also have a badge ID number and a central phone number that can be called to verify the badge holder.
I personally liked the uniforms in the movie, "Oh, Those Nurses!"
Willie,
As a Chemo paitent I spend a lot of time in and out of the hospital and its impossible to tell if you're dealing with custodial staff or a brain surgeon. At least most of the doctors still choose to wear white coats which helps a bit.
Arguements can be made for wearing "scrubs" in an environment where blood and other bodily fluids often splash about but at least they could come up with a standard coding.
Badges? I go to a VA hospital and badges are a given just as paitets show VA ID before treatment. Another issue is common courtesy. Medical personel seldom identify themselves by job title. Only telling you what they want to do next. Statements such as "I'm nurse Jones and I'm going to give your meds now." are few and far between.
The use of jargon is also widespread and used by staff as a form of shorthand speech. Long ago I got used to saying "In layman's english please." Sometimes over and over till I got the desired result.
P.A.'s and doctors all wear white coats. My doctor prefers novelty ties.
When I started in HC, we ALL wore white. Which wasn't good because everyone thought you were a nurse (even if you were a kitchen worker or a housekeeper). So you would hear things like "I called out to that nurse as she walked by and she just kept on walkin'"
Then it went to where everyone wore a specific color. But they let the departments pick colors. So the teal the nurses aids wore looked a lot like the hunter green the food service staff wore. And the multi-print patterns that coordinated with them EVERYONE was wearing. So you would hear "That nurses aid came in my room while my pump was beeping and she just picked up my tray and walked out!"
Personally, I think it is best for nursing to be in white, the nursing managers/Dr.s/PTs/RDs etc to be in lab coats, and the non-medical departments to be in administration dictated color uniforms with no variation or patterns allowed.
I'm sorry that you have encountered such callous jerks. Unfortunately, white uniforms are quite impractible these days, although it would serve to spotlight the so-called "nurse shortage." Whatever their costume, the staff tending to you should have had the basic courtesy to introduce themselves.
I was just joking about this topic the other day- it used to be that everyone knew who the doctor was b/c they wore the long white coats. Med students wore short white coats and residents wore mid-length white coats. Nowadays, almost everyone is wearing the long white coats (except the med students): residents, pharmacists, lab techs, PA's, respiratory therapists, TPN nurses, transplant coordinators, and even the social workers. Sometimes, I think people just wear them for added warmth in cold parts of the hospital!
I don't think the nurses wear the white coats anywhere, though. So maybe that's how to best tell them apart: the only ones doing any work that aren't wearing long white coats!
And to adress someone's post- almost everyone wears a name tag with a picture, but they're kind of small and sometimes flip over backwards, so they aren't always as useful as you'd think.
The hospital can be a confusing and overwhelming place, and the only way to get used to it is to experience it (not usually the desired option).
If you or a loved one finds themselves struggling with being in a hospital, I'd advise them to politely ask questions. No-one who comes in the room should mind you asking them who they are and what they're doing there. Even if they introduced themselves before, and you've forgotten what they're function is, it's okay to ask again. Of course, if you have to keep on asking, maybe you've got Alzheimers, which is something the medical staff would like to know about!
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
Rather than color, I found it sad when nurses quit wearing the caps they earned; that was what really set them apart from all other staff.
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