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Nursing Scrubs: A Brief History

The white apron that we associate nurses with makes them look elegant and pure. The dress consists of a dress, a pinafore apron and a nurses cap. Nuns habits were known to have given birth to the first of the nurse uniforms. The nuns were known to have taken care of the ill before the 19th century. This is where we can trace the advent of the nurses uniform. One of Florence Nightingales early students designed the first nurses uniform. The uniform as designed for the students of Miss Florence Nightingales school of nursing.

Before the 1940s, there were major changes in the uniform. It was left to the respective hospitals to determine what nursing uniforms they took up for their nurses. From the late 1980s there has been a shift towards a new design of Nursing Uniforms. These new nurses uniforms consists of a tunic styled top with dark blue trousers. The color of the dress depends upon the grade (or more recently, the band of the nurse). The tunics often have piping around the edges of the uniform. There is also a uniform with the dress of the same color as the top tunic.

Today many nurses wear the scrub dress. The scrub dress is a similar type of uniform. It is sometimes worn in operating rooms. For outdoor clothing a nurse wore a red jacket over the indoor nurse uniform. Traditional uniforms are still common in the third world but in North America and Western Europe the nursing scrubs have become more popular. Most nurses wear the scrub to work in these countries. The scrub dress started to get popular in the 1990s. In some countries the traditional nurses uniforms have been entirely replaced with the scrub dresses. Most hospitals n the Europe and USA argue that the scrub is much easier to wash than the traditional nurses uniforms. Some peoples prefer the new scrubs. They dislike and do not approve of the traditional nurses uniforms. The nurses who liked and approve of the old nurses uniforms are of the opinion that patients look upon nurses wearing scrubs as cleaners and they cannot be identified as nurses. These issues come up at times.

Scrubs typically have a colorful top with matching pants or trousers. These are available from many companies. Most of them are made of two flaps with one reaching over the other and are worn over the trousers that match with them. So, most of them are v-necked. Some of them come in a single color. But the scrubs come in an all-white combination, too. They come in a variety of colors and prints. Most of them come in colorful prints. They are worn with black leather or white shoes. Cherokee, Tafford, Scribbidy and Jasco are well-known brands in the nursing scrub market. Nurses look colorful in scrubs. Scrubs are stylish and have an advantage over traditional nurses dresses. In few years time we will probably see it being introduced in other countries apart from those where they have become popular now, i.e. countries in North America and western Europe.

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Max Johnson of The Uniform Connection. Click for more Nursing Scrubs: A Brief History.

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