All Your Scrubs

Of all the hospital staff in medical uniforms, the registered nurse is perhaps the most important. 

After surgery, you should have the care of a Registered Nurse.  An RN monitoring your vital signs can check for bleeding, infections, and breathing problems which are the most common concerns within the first 24 hours after surgery.  When an RN is monitoring your vital signs, he or she is combining these and other observations with his or her education, skills, and professional judgment to develop a specific plan of care for you.

An RN has the education and experience to make these judgments and to develop a plan of care that is essential to your recovery.  While support staff offers invaluable assistance in your care, there is no substitute for the care that is provided by a registered nurse.

An RN can answer your questions so you can learn about your illness and recovery.  If your are discharged on medications, your nurse will inform you about the medications and their proper use.  If you need assistance at home, your nurse will have suggestions and be able to teach you and your family members about your care. 

Time with your RN is essential to your recovery.  As a consumer, you owe it to yourself to learn as much as you can about the care you will receive.

Have you ever wondered about the origin of the white medical lab coat?  A white coat or laboratory coat is usually a knee-length overcoat or smock worn by professionals in the medical field or by those working in a laboratory to protect their street clothes.  The medical lab coat is made from white or light-colored cotton, linen, or cotton polyester blend, allowing it to be washed at high temperature and make it easy to see if it is clean.

When used in the laboratory, the lab coats protect against all kinds of accidental spills.  If the lab technician is working with chemicals, the lab coat needs to have long sleeves and be made of an absorbent material, such as cotton, so that the user can be protected from the chemical.  Some lab coats have buttons at the end of the sleeves, to secure them around the wrist so that they do not get into beakers of chemicals.  Short-sleeved lab coats also exist, and are preferred by some scientists.  Microbiologists generally prefer the short sleeved coats because it also allows them to wash their forearms which is an important consideration in microbiology.

Like the word “suit”, the phrase “white coat” is sometimes used to denote the wearer, i.e. the scientific personnel in a biotechnology or chemical company.

Every winter, doctors and other healthcare professionals in their medical uniforms spend lots of time and energy encouraging their patients–especially the elderly and those who have recently been ill–to get their annual flu shots.  In years past, the medical community has advised the public that the number one weapon against the onset of the flu season was flu medicine Tamiflu. 

This year the most common flu bug is strongly resistant to Tamiflu, according to the CDC.  This means the Tamiflu medication will be ineffective this season.  As a matter of fact, the overall effectiveness of the flu vaccine is quite questionable.  There have been multiple studies performed with widely varying results.  For example, one study concluded that seasonal flu shots cut elderly deaths in half during the winter months.  Meanwhile, another study found no impact on the health of the elderly.

Some studies found that flu vaccinations were linked to a large drop in the incidence of pneumonia.  Others found no link at all  between flu shots and the risk of pneumonia.

While it remains unclear exactly how effective the flu vaccine really is, officials reassure consumers that flu vaccine other than Tamiflu is available and is seems to be able to fight this year’s strain of flu bugs.   

At one time, nursing was a career primarily for females.  However today nursing is an interesting and profitable career choice for both genders. There is an ever-increasing demand for nurses.  Nursing is a very stable profession in this rather shaky economy and the salaries are on the rise.  In recent years, more men are choosing the nursing profession.   As they join this profession, men are finding the field to be a rewarding and satisfying career choice. 

With the baby boomer generation on the brink of retirement, there is an increased need for qualified nursing care.  According to the Department of Labor, registered nursing is very high on the list for job growth through at least the next decade.  Statistics show there will be over one million new and replacement nursing positions opening up during the next ten years.  According to information from the American Nurses Association, currently only six percent of all nurses are men.  However, with the promise of this very rewarding career, more men are enrolling in nursing school every day.

Nursing is a very promising career and it is almost certain we will be seeing more mens nursing scrubs in the future.

 These days, surgical scrubs now come in custom colors instead of just white or blue. But even if the traditional style and color of surgical scrubs are now altered, the  purpose remains the same.

And aside from trousers or gowns, scrubs may also come in the following modern styles:

- V-necked shirt and drawstring pants
- short-sleeved calf-length dress
- waist-length long-sleeved jacket with no lapels and stockinette cuffs
- shirts and pants that can be worn with a cap

Not only professionals but almost all kinds of workers have work uniform. Military men have their camouflage uniform, medical professionals have their scrubs and even sales ladies we see in malls all wear standard clothing communicating not their fashion sense but rather giving us hints on which establishment they work for.

The wearing of uniform policy among various organizations is essential in projecting its collective image. Somehow believing that the homogeneity of clothing reflects the unified goal of such organizations, strict policies are implemented on various workplaces about proper wearing of uniforms.

We are sad to report that Clyantha Stanford Glover died January 17, 2009 on her 108th birthday at St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights near St. Louis.  She died just hours before a party that was to have been hosted by friends and family in her honor.  Mrs. Glover was believed to be the oldest registered nurse in the United States. 

Mrs. Glover was born in Paris, Texas in 1901.  She left Texas and went to St. Louis in 1923 to attend the Homer G. Phillips School of Nursing.  She graduated from nursing school in 1926 and put on her nurses shoes to begin working as a registered nurse.  She continued to dedicate her life to caring for others until she retired in 1969.

Her son, Julian Glover, said that until recently his mother’s health had been good.  She was hospitalized last month with heart problems and had recently gone to a center for rehabilitation.  Mr. Glover is quoted as saying, “She wanted to see her birthday and she saw that.”
 

The University of California, San Francisco and the Muhimbili University of Health Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Tanzania are collaborating to help solve the problem of a shortage of healthcare workers in this African country.  The University of California, San Francisco recently received a $7.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to address this shortage.  This is a two-year grant that will help to develop, implement and document strategies to enable MUHAS and other African institutions to meet their countries’ health workforce needs.

This project will utilize the resources of the two major universities to approach the problem.  Faculty from the two schools will work together to share curricula and educational technologies, and develop collaborative research programs.  Teaching people from these African countries to provide healthcare services will provide a long term solution to this problem of healthcare needs.

These two universities have worked together for four years and have achieved a high level of professional trust and respect.  Hopefully this joint project will enable MUHAS to develop an ongoing program to train healthcare workers in their own country and eliminate this critical shortage.  Hopefully the future will hold more graduates from Tanzania proudly wearing their own medical uniforms and treating their own countrymen.

School nurses have an increasingly difficult job to fill.  In the early years, the school nurse was responsible for checking the students’ height and weight and administering hearing tests.  The nurse would administer first aid to students with minor injuries.  However, the position of school nurse has evolved greatly over the past two decades.

One of the latest requirements causing concern is the use of an EpiPen.  An EpiPen is a device designed to be injected into the body to stop anaphylaxis which is a severe allergic reaction causing the throat or tongue to swell and restrict breathing.

The EpiPen was a nonexistent tool in schools two decades ago, but now it is standard issue.  At any given school you will find several students who carry them.  In the past, this tool was almost never used.  However rules now allow teachers to use them on a student in a life-threatening situation.  Many schools now have additional EpiPens around the school buildings in unlocked cabinets to provide immediate relief in emergency situations.  The school nurses must train these teachers and other delegates to properly diagnose the signs and inject the medicine.

That person around campus in nurses scrubs commands a high degree of respect.  He or she is the person with final responsibility over a multitude of emergency situations.

An area of growing concerning in this nation is the shortage of school nurses.  The role of the school nurse has evolved in the last twenty years from checking weight, vision and hearing and administering first aid.  School nurses are now expected to handle increasingly complicated illnesses and be prepared to treat all kinds of chronic illnesses on a daily basis.  School nurses are required to administer emergency drugs like epinephrine.  Even students with complex disabilities needing tube feeding and emergency care plans are part of the daily duties.

Nationwide only 44.8 percent of all public schools employ a full-time school nurse, according to a 2007 study by the National Association of School Nurses.  In addition, nursing jobs are among the first to be cut or reduced in hours.  When school districts find themselves short of funds, it is easier to eliminate the position of school nurse than a teacher. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommended ratio for normal students to full-time nurses is 750-to-1.  However there are very few schools with all healthy students.  The ratio for students requiring daily and complex nursing service is 225 and 125-to-1 respectively.

This is an area of which we should all be aware and actively campaign to increase the numbers of nurses wearing medical uniforms on our public school campuses.