Plan B Forum

I was in Whole Foods today trying to get some more money into Jeff's pockets. The guy ahead of me in the checkout line was decked out in hospital scrubs. Top, pants over his regular trousers, and even the hat - the sort surgeons wear to keep the hair and sweat off the patient.

Now it seems to me that scrubs serve two purposes. Washed to be sterile or at least reasonably clean, they protect the patient from whatever dirt and toxins the doc/nurse is carrying on his person. They also protect the doc/nurse clothes from the blood and germs and effluvia which emanate from the patient.

If he has been wearing the things all day and is now on his way home, I don't want him wearing his bloody vomity shitty poxy clothes at the supermarket. And if he is on his way to the hospital then his scrubs will not be sterile or even close to clean. So what is the rationale for wearing these things? Is it just virtue signaling?

I think, for a while there, it was sort of a fashion fad, just like those two-piece track/warm-up suits in the 1970s-1980s (think of the outfit the arch-villain 'Vector' wore in the first "Despicable Me" animated cartoon movie), the cotton fleece sweatshirt/sweat pants ensembles — color-coordinated, of course — that followed those, and the cycling-inspired, skin-tight, just-above-the-knee-length 'bicycle shorts on women' look that took over for a while about fifteen years or so ago.  Scrubs were being sold at big-box stores (WalMart, K-mart, Target) and just about everywhere else as a comfortable and slightly more stylish alternative to the ubiquitous Dockers and printed logo/message T-shirts that espoused 'casual wear' around that same time.

So I'd assume that's what it is.

-"BB"-

ex-khobar Andy wrote: ↑

Wed May 18, 2022 3:32 am

So what is the rationale for wearing these things? Is it just virtue signaling?

I remember a friend of mine when we were in our early 20s who had a job as a maintenance worker at the hospital and he had to wear hospital scrubs at work. He would wear them to and from work and at lunch time. I don't know why.

The important question is, was the guy with all the vomit, germs, bacteria and various other effluvia on his clothing wearing a face mask?

Regular scrubs are not sterile. Porters wear them, nurses, docs, cleaners - all sorts. You're confusing them with clothing donned for the operating theatre. Guys getting lunch - is he supposed to change into a 3-piece suit?

I wore a polo and khaki pants last gig.

Ditto what Meade said - scrubs aren’t sterile they are preferred attire for many medical workers of all stripes because they are inexpensive relative to other professional attire and won’t be a great loss if they happen to get stained with puke shit piss blood etc. When working with highly contagious patients like on a covid ward another layer of disposable protective gear goes over the scrubs - same thing for surgeons nurses and anesthesiologists in the OR.

Anyway germs are everywhere. I’m a fairly tidy person having been raised by a career military person who held our home to the white glove test (joyful environment for children you might imagine) but I don’t sanitize a shit ton and I do really gross things like sharing my bed with a dog who goes outside and gets into stuff and lays in the dirt etc. and I’m sure my body is in regular contact with a plethora of questionable microbes. I like to think it’s building my adaptive immunity, keeping all those B cells and T cells on their toes.

Hospital scrubs get you through the queues quicker, sometimes even your goods paid for. Neat trick.

Around here at least, most of the time scrubs are worn as the work uniform, not over clothes. Perhaps this guy was wearing scrubs over his clothes and would take them off to prevent bringing germs into the house? Not necessary, but then maybe there is a major problem with an immunocompromised person at home.

He had the surgeon hat and everything.

"Perhaps this guy was wearing scrubs over his clothes and would take them off to prevent bringing germs into the house?"

Why bring them into Trader Joe's, then?

There are plenty of worse germs in Trader Joe’s. The place where food enters the store and gets stacked and sits until stock people take it to the place on the shelf where it belongs is not even close to a sterile environment.

You are supposed to cook and wash your food at home. That’s your best expectation of avoiding ingestion of germs.

Sure but, he is likely exposed to a lot of germs in the store, and he can avoid bringing them into his house by removing his scrubs before he enters. I guess he could just as easily be wearing coveralls.

What a convoluted discussion about some chap popping into a shop during his break. He works in scrubs. So what? Who conjured up all this germophobia, vomit, blood and goodness knows what? Maybe he's a porter pushing trolleys around - and maybe if his scrubs get messed up he changes the damn things because he doesn't like being wet and smelly.

Lord, leave him (or her) alone.