Medical Scrubs - Sexy Or a Necessity?

It is Tuesday night and a new episode of Grey's Anatomy is on. Millions of people are following this "medical" TV series every week. The next day people talk about it online or at the water cooler at work. Besides the actual content many discussions also talk about the actors and actresses, what they wear, and how (eventually) beautiful they look.

Believe it or not, but TV shows like ER or Grey's Anatomy are major drivers in work related clothing styles. Medical scrubs used to be white or green or blue and pretty much just boring. However, with TV series putting their actors and actresses to work in more colorful designed scrubs has increased the demand for the same kind of scrubs among real nurses and real doctors.

And of course with that trend being underway there are also discussions how good looking some nurses or doctors are in scrubs. And of course these discussions are not held by members of these professions, but from people outside the medical field. What these people tend to forget that scrubs have a real purpose. Working in a hospital or doctor's office nurses and doctors have to deal with many situations where blood or other bodily fluids might get onto their clothes. For one scrubs are made out of fabric that are highly absorbent, but also protect the person wearing them at the same time. When scrubs get dirty with blood or urine or vomit they have higher requirements for when being washed. A normal washing machine and a normal washing detergent are not capable of really getting all the stains out and to sanitize them at the same time. So, scrubs needs to be washed at higher temperatures and with different, industry strength washing detergents. Normal clothes would not last very long under the same treatment. Well, scrubs do because they are designed for this purpose.

So, while some think medical scrubs are sexy, the reality is that scrubs are real work clothes with a purpose that have evolved from being boring white or green to a little more stylish design. If you would work in a bank, you would not wear your daddy's ties and suits either. You wear more stylish clothes, too and the same thing has happened to medical scrubs. And talking to real nurses and real doctors you will find out that working wearing scrubs in a real hospital and a real doctor's office is definitely a necessity. No nurse or doctor is wearing scrubs to look sexy.