Uniform Designs for Nurses (Traditional Whites vs. Technicolor Scrubs)

There is one thing that all newly licensed RNs go through. It's like a coming-of-age, right of passage ceremony / ritual every young and excited nurse experience. After 4 long years of wearing a university mandated uniform, the world has finally proclaimed that, this time, we are equipped enough to decide... what to wear.

To tell you the truth it's not as simple as it sounds. Okay, for male nurses, maybe. Their uniforms all look the same to me anyways, although some metrosexuals opt for the Chinese collar style even though most of them resemble a Chinese as much as Vice-President Binay does.

I've seen good designs and frighteningly bad ones from RN friends, college classmates and random-nurses-commuting-to-work. However, when I tried to search for pictures of such so that I could give a copy to my seamstress, Google either gave me nurses in scrubs or some slutty Halloween/Fetish costume with a probable porn star as the model.

Unlike other countries which have stopped tormenting their nurses with having to wear boring whites day in and day out and opted for more comfortable I-come-in-all-shapes-and-color scrubs, here in the Philippines, we're still stuck with white. And not just white as a color but also white in stiff must-be-ironed-with-iron-fists type of cloth. I think only the most advanced (and expensive) hospitals have their RNs in scrubs. But for the rest of the country, scrubs are only for OR and Nursery.

I don't think it's a bad thing, though. I think white uniforms look more professional although scrubs are definitely easier to move in. The appalling thing about scrubs in this country is that almost everyone wears it. From manicuristas to yayas who follow toddlers around to people in spas to people in derm clinics who prick pimples off other people... it's hard to count them off one by one. So maybe, for the meantime, unless I get hired in one of those high story buildings with the names St. Lukes / Medical City / Cardinal Santos in it, I'm voting for the traditional whites.

Speaking of which, I have compiled a small pile of white nursing uniforms for those who are still looking for a design that would best fit them. I'm not saying all of them are good (actually, most are Bleh with a capital B) but they are all I've manage to find. Click on the image for a larger version.

Not a lot to choose from, I know. Three of them looks exactly the same and I'm not sure if two of the above are even allowed in certain institutions. Okay, maybe I am now leaning towards scrubs now. Expensive hospitals, hire me already!