Scrubs in Public

[MrsK]

**THREAD HIJACK**
MrsK, your sweet dog and my Siberian husky seem like they could be litter mates, with all the daring stuff and "please-don't-die" situations.
Rhett has survived so many things, I lost count.
**END HIJACK**

Yes, we've had many episodes where I'm alternately scolding and comforting. "Ack! Bad Bad Bad Bad Girl! Oh, Please don't die! I'm gonna kill you! But please don't die. You're a Good Girl! I can't believe you did that! Mommie loves you!"

Sorry for the hijack, back to scrubs. . .

[Auspicious]

I think it's not so much about the size of your medical community, as the quality and density of your loony population. Ides's location of NYC gets my loving vote for mecca of loons, but I suppose we could debate it the way various cities vie for the title of best barbecue or best music scene.

[ides]

Yeah. There are a heck of a lot of loones here. And the things strangers say to you (without being invited). . . . esspecially when you are with a baby. E-gads! One woman told me to not let my baby get fat - but give him the gift of being small. Another man warned me about road ragers- men are the worst he said. Eekkk!

[weeniegeniewife]

I dunno...there's a very popular bumper sticker here that says: "Keep Portland Weird". LOL!

[ladymoreta]

DH wears his scrubs home, and we wash them. His hospital has one of those machines, but they're often sorted wrong, so he ends up with the wrong size. And he doesn't like having to change when he gets there. I don't think we've ever gotten sick from his scrubs, but I've brought home several colds from working in my cubicle farm of an office. I just go with the assumption that nobody washes their hands, and they touch everything, but I still end up getting sick sometimes, in spite of my almost OCD hand washing and hand sanitizer use. IMHO, touching a door handle or a keyboard is much more "risky" than wearing scrubs home...

DH wears his scrubs home but we don't wash them. He changes right away and puts them in a hamper we have just for them. Then when it's full he brings a bag of dirty ones back to work and gets a stack of clean ones.

I used to be all "everything from the hospital is contaminated" but I guess I've gotten over that.

All things that come home from the hospital make me nervous. We wash his scrubs at home most of the time. However, he will not come home in the scrubs if there are any bodily fluids on them. My overall feeling of germs from the hospital.. yuck. I wish I could control more of the hospital stuff coming into the house.

[HouseofWool]

The new hospital we are at has a pretty strict policy about not wearing scrubs out of the facility. So, he goes into the hospital in slacks and a button down (no tie) and changes into scrubs if needed. Yesterday's autopsy was pretty bad so he showered as soon as he got home. He also leaves a pair of shoes at work. With a baby on the floor constantly, I prefer that. With an older kiddo, I'm not as worried.

That woman is nuts. Was she planning on licking his scrubs or something?

We've been washing DH's scrubs with the rest of the laundry since he started volunteering 13 years ago and our family has not had any more illnesses than the average family.

I'm more worried about the germs lingering on door handles, shopping carts, pens, etc. than what might be on his scrubs.

[MrsC]

DH wears scrubs all day, usually the same ones to and from work except if there are any bodily fluids on them. Those he can throw away! He won't wear them anywhere except work, drive home, then takes them off right away.

We have to wash them because DH is allergic to certain types of laundry detergent. he had them washed at the hospital once and his arms swelled up He wears shoes home but they are left at the door.

Since it's just us, I figure the exposure to germs will only make us healthier.
The children's hospital are more stringent and won't let people wear scrubs to/from the hospital. I think this is fair but not all hospitals do this. I don't like seeing people wear scrubs to work when they're taking the bus/train/subway and I see a lot of peds employees doing this, you can tell by the tweety bird scrubs. It's just not right! Kids pick up so many bugs.

Then again, DH has turned me into a germaphobe, I rarely put my bag on the seat of the train and never on the floor. The most important thing is people keeping their hands clean. I carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer in my bag and use it. I had one cold last winter and escaped several colds/flus going round the office. It really works.

[Sheherezade]

I'm more worried about the germs lingering on door handles, shopping carts, pens, etc. than what might be on his scrubs.

When DH was a PGY-1 and my son was 18 months old, my son got a serious antibiotic resistant pneumonia. He was hospitalized for a month and put through several different antibiotic regimes before they finally (THANK GOD!) found something that brought him out of it. It was horrifying.

Of course, DH spent a good deal of time worrying that the resistant germ had come home with him from Hopkins. We were ever thankful to the ID attending that took the time to sit us down and tell us that this was more likely to have come from West Side Market or the Water Taxis than the scrubs. I don't know if he was *completely* right but that meant a lot to us. He must have sensed that DH was kicking himself and worried that he may have seriously threatened his child's life by not changing before leaving the hospital.

Germs - even super germs - are everywhere these days. I'm just glad that DH is sooooo good at hand washing after all this training.

[Meenah]

If you are in a hospital you may notice that alot of nurses push the elevator buttons with their knuckles when on the way to the cafeteria!!!

[DCJenn]

One of my nurses (staff) used to get soooo annoyed in public restrooms because invariably the trashcan is right underneath the clean paper towel dispensers. and really, people aren't just throwing away papertowels that were only used to dry newly cleansed hands.

She would go on these rants that were really quite funny.

and as a result, I'm always looking at the placement of trashcans in public restrooms.

Jenn

[scrub-jay]

One of my nurses (staff) used to get soooo annoyed in public restrooms because invariably the trashcan is right underneath the clean paper towel dispensers. and really, people aren't just throwing away papertowels that were only used to dry newly cleansed hands.

She would go on these rants that were really quite funny.

and as a result, I'm always looking at the placement of trashcans in public restrooms.

Jenn

Although I don't rant about that, I do understand the sentiment. I tend to wash my hands before too, but I think that comes from working in labs. I like it when the paper towel trash is beside the door handle I have to touch...or even better, when I don't have to touch a door handle because the door swings open. Or even better - and I saw these when in airports this week - the DYSON air blade hand dryers - OMG I really want one!! lol, I did get strange looks from a woman as I was playing with the hand dryer a bit too long - awkward...



-C

[oceanchild]

It always made me laugh at my office to see people very carefully save their paper towel to hold the handle of the bathroom door, hold the door open with their foot while they drop the paper towel in the trash...

...and then walk down the hall and open their office door with their hand. Oh yes, the office door has none of those *bathroom* door germs...