How to wash Scrubs (for new med student)?

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Thangbill

Thangbill

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Hi everyone,

My school starts in August and has the integrated curriculum, meaning anatomy labs spread throughout preclinical years. That brought to my mind questions about the purchase and maintenance of scrubs. Here are my questions:

1. How many pairs do I really need?
2. How often should I wash them?
3. After being exposed to cadaver juice (get splashed on or touched by the instructor's glove), should I keep or dispose of them?
4. Do I wash them with normal clothes or by themselves?
5. Should I wash them at the laundry store or using my own washer?

Thank you for your time.
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I just got the cheapest pair of scrubs I could, and wore them for the minimum amount of time. changed into them before and after lab. I don't think I ever washed mine, and I threw them out when I finished anatomy lab. bigger concern was how to get the smell off your skin, especially if it leaks into your gloves.
 
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1. 2-4
2. up to you. I washed mine after every use, I know someone who never washed theirs. He's still alive.
3. keep them, its just formaldehyde, it will wash out
4. personal call, I washed mine with the rest of my clothes
5. your house is fine
 
I never washed anatomy scrubs. They're going to smell like death (literally) no matter what you do. I would occasionally steal scrubs from hospital during preclinical stuff so I could throw out my anatomy scrubs that I had been wearing for a few months and get a fresh set.

Keep those things away from everything that you know and love. Honestly, the smell just sticks to everything.
 
I also never washed my anatomy scrubs. I went to goodwill and got a pair, wore them for about 4 weeks and tossed them in the trash. After that I got access to the scrubs my institution allows us to have. I got a pair out and exchanged for a new pair when they got too gunked up.

If you do wash them don't wash them with other stuff. I have heard the smell rubs off on whatever else you wash it with.

For the clinical years we got access to a 24/7 scrub machine. I just use those and exchange every now and then. Occasionally I will wash them at home, if there is no blood/other bodily fluids on them. If I do get blood on myself I try to exchange them at the hospital whenever I have time, unless it is a ton of fluid then I do it right away.
 
I don't know how you guys can tolerate wearing clothing that goes unwashed for so long, especially during anatomy. That's disgusting to me. I always washed my scrubs after anatomy lab. I still have my scrubs and wear them to this day. And they still smell fresh.

I have the same issue with white coats. I hear of people washing them only once per rotation. BIG WTF. I can't fathom how people knowingly wear their white coats with various body fluids and God-knows-what-else on them.
 
CherryRedDracul said:
I don't know how you guys can tolerate wearing clothing that goes unwashed for so long, especially during anatomy. That's disgusting to me. I always washed my scrubs after anatomy lab. I still have my scrubs and wear them to this day. And they still smell fresh.
Click to expand...

+1
 
We had 10-ish weeks of anatomy. Wore the same pair in lab everyday without washing ever. Not like you can smell anything over the cadavers anyway.

Just get a few pairs of scrubs, wear them until you can't tolerate the smell anymore, then wash them all together wherever it's most convenient. After a week or two you won't even care about having anatomy lab all over you. Sometimes I would leave after lab and get all the way to my car before I realized I forgot to wash my hands.
 
seminoma said:
We had 10-ish weeks of anatomy. Wore the same pair in lab everyday without washing ever. Not like you can smell anything over the cadavers anyway.

Just get a few pairs of scrubs, wear them until you can't tolerate the smell anymore, then wash them all together wherever it's most convenient. After a week or two you won't even care about having anatomy lab all over you. Sometimes I would leave after lab and get all the way to my car before I realized I forgot to wash my hands.
Click to expand...

Doesn't this make your place reek of formaldehyde?
 
CherryRedDracul said:
I have the same issue with white coats. I hear of people washing them only once per rotation. BIG WTF. I can't fathom how people knowingly wear their white coats with various body fluids and God-knows-what-else on them.
Click to expand...

Really depends on the rotation. There's a few rotations where mine got weekly washings, but I don't know what kind of wacky hospital you're in-- I had one gross specimen of bodily fluid land on my coat once, in two years. And it was my own. I got a nosebleed.
 
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I had 3 pairs of scrubs for 7 weeks of anatomy. Just kept them in my locker and changed into/out of them just for anatomy. Also had a pair of old sneakers just for lab, as sometimes stuff gets on your feet. After anatomy was over I washed them like 3 times on the hottest setting possible and they don't smell.

I never really got any fluids on my scrubs, as a lot of us wore plastic aprons for the really messy days in the thorax/abdomen. If I got a whole bunch of fluid on there, I'd wash them, but if it's just the smell from the room and you're just wearing them for a couple hours a day, who cares. Our anatomy instructor sometimes inadvertently flicked pieces of tissue on his face and didn't even blink. It's not the end of the world to touch that stuff.
 
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VisionaryTics said:
I never washed anatomy scrubs. They're going
Click to expand...
the argus said:
1. 2-4
2. up to you. I washed mine after every use, I know someone who never washed theirs. He's still alive.
3. keep them, its just formaldehyde, it will wash out
4. personal call, I washed mine with the rest of my clothes
5. your house is fine
Click to expand...
It's not just formaldehyde though. There's hair, fatty tissues, and who-knows-what. I imagine it would be grossed to mix the contaminated scrubs with other clothes.
 
Whatever you do dont bring that crap into your home,thats about the grossest thing I can imagine doing in medschool. If you insist on being able to wear something clean then I would suggest just buying a ton of cheap shirts from walmart and toss them out once a week.

IIRC when I took anatomy very few people wore scrub tops, we just wore whatever crappy clothes we found in our parent's attics or whatever. As far as I can tell the main design point of hospital scrubs is that they are made to withstand being washed a million times at really high heat, you not going to do that so dont waste money on scrubs, just wear old clothes.
 
Thangbill said:
It's not just formaldehyde though. There's hair, fatty tissues, and who-knows-what. I imagine it would be grossed to mix the contaminated scrubs with other clothes.
Click to expand...

Like Ismet above, I never got very dirty during anatomy lab, and on the messy days you can wear a gown. And even though its a little different and might seem gross to you because it's human, you aren't really going to come across anything that you wouldn't come across cooking a thanksgiving turkey. A little piece of human fat isn't going to ruin the rest of your laundry any more than a piece of beef fat from cooking a steak.
 
Is this thread real? At our school you use the hospital scrub machine and you throw in the old ones and take a new one out. You aren't technically allowed to take scrubs out of the hospital even.... and washing nasty anatomy lab scrubs at home???? Are you kidding me - NASTY
 
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Just use hot water and bleach or oxyclean. Or, you know, dilute H2O2, in a bucket first if you are really paranoid about contaminating your home washer. Dry on high heat.

Scrubs are made to withstand aggressive washing.

Don't buy nice scrubs. You easily spend $50-60 per complete pair of scrubs if you buy better brands at full retain. Friends don't let friends pay full retail. Go online. Cherokee and Landau are good brands. They are made well, out of soft, durable cotton. You can probably get sets at $20-30 each with just a little shopping around.

Scrub machines have made stealing scrubs from the hospital, the traditional means by which medical students and residents get scrubs, a much less viable option.
 
Thangbill said:
Hi everyone,

My school starts in August and has the integrated curriculum, meaning anatomy labs spread throughout preclinical years. That brought to my mind questions about the purchase and maintenance of scrubs. Here are my questions:

1. How many pairs do I really need?
2. How often should I wash them?
3. After being exposed to cadaver juice (get splashed on or touched by the instructor's glove), should I keep or dispose of them?
4. Do I wash them with normal clothes or by themselves?
5. Should I wash them at the laundry store or using my own washer?

Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...
Our anatomy course was like 4 months long in MS1.
I ended up using a pair of used scrubs (they were washed of course) from our anatomy department for free, and had a new set of scrubs I'd bought myself.

I kept them in our locker at school, wore them just for the few hours we'd be in lab and then put them back in the locker. Never washed them. Just halfway through I switched from using one set of scrubs to the other.

End of the year, I gave the donated scrubs back for next years class to use (and the department washes them)
I tried washing my other pair of scrubs at home (used our regular machine, but I didn't risk putting my other clothes in with it), but the smell never completely leaves. Honestly, you're probably gonna want to donate your scrubs to the next batch of students taking anatomy, or just throw them out. There's no other situation where they'd be useful cause of the lingering smell.

At least that's how it was for me.

Also, get yourself a pair of cheap shoes you'd be willing to wear for lab and then throw out at the end of the year.
I also bought a cheap long sleeve shirt to wear under my scrub top so I could keep my arms covered up too.
 
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zeppelinpage4 said:
Our anatomy course was like 4 months long in MS1.
I ended up using a pair of used scrubs (they were washed of course) from our anatomy department for free, and had a new set of scrubs I'd bought myself.

I kept them in our locker at school, wore them just for the few hours we'd be in lab and then put them back in the locker. Never washed them. Just halfway through I switched from using one set of scrubs to the other.

End of the year, I gave the donated scrubs back for next years class to use (and the department washes them)
I tried washing my other pair of scrubs at home (used our regular machine, but I didn't risk putting my other clothes in with it), but the smell never completely leaves. Honestly, you're probably gonna want to donate your scrubs to the next batch of students taking anatomy, or just throw them out. There's no other situation where they'd be useful cause of the lingering smell.
Click to expand...

Did any of you guys who never washed their scrubs, and then say they smelled terrible and you can't get the smell out, ever consider that the reason they smelled so bad was that you never washed them in the first place for 2-4 months?
 
I found a hospital stash and grabbed a fresh pair every day and let them wash the used set.
 
cbrons said:
Lol i got to the point in anatomy where i just wore street clothes in the lab cuz i was too lazy to change.
Click to expand...
When I was touring the anatomy lab at TT, I saw a couple of students (or residents) in their street clothes. One of them even drank soda and put his cup very close to the cadaver while doing dissection. I don't know how he does that or if that is healthy or even permissible, but I think it takes a lot of courage to do that.
 
So for getting formaldehyde/formalin stink out of clothes when it doesn't seem like your regular washing is doing the job, my mompants recommendations for avoiding wasting a set of perfectly decent scrubs:

1 - wash them more than once a course, EWEWEWEW *full body shudder*
If that doesn't work,
2 - add bleach to the bleach dispenser
If that doesn't work,
3 - add a laundry booster like Borax or OxyClean

Finally, if none of this works, or you want to skip right to the business, there's a very old historical re-enactor trick you can try. We use natural canvas tents and they will get moldy give half a chance. To make that stop AND to prevent sleeping in a tent that reeks and/or activates all your least favorite allergies, then along with being careful to dry them out between uses and store them carefully in a dry place we do this:
4 - get a big bottle of the cheapest possible plain vodka or PGA/Everclear and a clean spray bottle. Put vodka in spray bottle. Hang up the WASHED scrubs in question outside, preferably in sunlight; draping across a clean balcony rail is probably fine. Drench with vodka using the spray bottle. Let them dry and air out in the sun. Flip over if needed and repeat.

I have yet to have any smell ever survive this treatment and that includes formaldehyde/cat corpse juice that I got splashed with in undergrad A&P lab. I was wearing an apron and gloves but it got my lower jeans and my tennis shoes. After cleaning the shoes and the jeans were worn regularly till they weren't wearable as a result of normal wear and tear.
 
Thangbill said:
When I was touring the anatomy lab at TT, I saw a couple of students (or residents) in their street clothes. One of them even drank soda and put his cup very close to the cadaver while doing dissection. I don't know how he does that or if that is healthy or even permissible, but I think it takes a lot of courage to do that.
Click to expand...

Ew ew ew no food or drink in lab
 
Tintinnabula said:
So for getting formaldehyde/formalin stink out of clothes when it doesn't seem like your regular washing is doing the job, my mompants recommendations for avoiding wasting a set of perfectly decent scrubs:

1 - wash them more than once a course, EWEWEWEW *full body shudder*
If that doesn't work,
2 - add bleach to the bleach dispenser
If that doesn't work,
3 - add a laundry booster like Borax or OxyClean

Finally, if none of this works, or you want to skip right to the business, there's a very old historical re-enactor trick you can try. We use natural canvas tents and they will get moldy give half a chance. To make that stop AND to prevent sleeping in a tent that reeks and/or activates all your least favorite allergies, then along with being careful to dry them out between uses and store them carefully in a dry place we do this:
4 - get a big bottle of the cheapest possible plain vodka or PGA/Everclear and a clean spray bottle. Put vodka in spray bottle. Hang up the WASHED scrubs in question outside, preferably in sunlight; draping across a clean balcony rail is probably fine. Drench with vodka using the spray bottle. Let them dry and air out in the sun. Flip over if needed and repeat.

I have yet to have any smell ever survive this treatment and that includes formaldehyde/cat corpse juice that I got splashed with in undergrad A&P lab. I was wearing an apron and gloves but it got my lower jeans and my tennis shoes. After cleaning the shoes and the jeans were worn regularly till they weren't wearable as a result of normal wear and tear.
Click to expand...

The spray bottle of vodka does wonders on my partner's jiu jitsu gis and my roller derby gear, I imagine it works equally well for scrubs.
 
Thangbill said:
Hi everyone,

My school starts in August and has the integrated curriculum, meaning anatomy labs spread throughout preclinical years. That brought to my mind questions about the purchase and maintenance of scrubs. Here are my questions:

1. How many pairs do I really need?
2. How often should I wash them?
3. After being exposed to cadaver juice (get splashed on or touched by the instructor's glove), should I keep or dispose of them?
4. Do I wash them with normal clothes or by themselves?
5. Should I wash them at the laundry store or using my own washer?

Thank you for your time.
Click to expand...

1. ~10
2. Frequently
3. Toss that **** out
4. Seriously?!
5. Laundry service
 
the argus said:
Did any of you guys who never washed their scrubs, and then say they smelled terrible and you can't get the smell out, ever consider that the reason they smelled so bad was that you never washed them in the first place for 2-4 months?
Click to expand...
That's quite possible. I honestly just didn't want to deal with bringing them home to wash them every few days. It was easier to toss them in my locker at school, and not worry about them.
 
Last edited:
Promethean said:
Just use hot water and bleach or oxyclean. Or, you know, dilute H2O2, in a bucket first if you are really paranoid about contaminating your home washer. Dry on high heat.

Scrubs are made to withstand aggressive washing.

Don't buy nice scrubs. You easily spend $50-60 per complete pair of scrubs if you buy better brands at full retain. Friends don't let friends pay full retail. Go online. Cherokee and Landau are good brands. They are made well, out of soft, durable cotton. You can probably get sets at $20-30 each with just a little shopping around.

Scrub machines have made stealing scrubs from the hospital, the traditional means by which medical students and residents get scrubs, a much less viable option.
Click to expand...

scrub machines make a lot of sense because paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to rent cumbersome machines that need to be loaded and reloaded makes way more sense than just buying more scrubs
 
Tintinnabula said:
4 - get a big bottle of the cheapest possible plain vodka or PGA/Everclear and a clean spray bottle. Put vodka in spray bottle. Hang up the WASHED scrubs in question outside, preferably in sunlight; draping across a clean balcony rail is probably fine. Drench with vodka using the spray bottle. Let them dry and air out in the sun. Flip over if needed and repeat.
Click to expand...

So, ethanol works. What about isopropyl? I love the stuff, and apply it liberally to all my exploded ink pen disasters. I've even gotten white scrubs back to white, stainless, with judicious application of isopropyl and H2O2. Wonder how it would work for smells. I imagine just as well, and cheaper than vodka. Also, not wasteful of consumable EtOH. Waste not, want not, as they say.

Psai said:
scrub machines make a lot of sense because paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to rent cumbersome machines that need to be loaded and reloaded makes way more sense than just buying more scrubs
Click to expand...

They claim that the machines and scrub rental was the cheaper option. It was framed as a purely economic decision based on prior year replacement costs for scrubs versus renting the machine. Before the scrub machine, we just had an enormous laundry cart full of scrubs. It was behind a locked door, but everyone who worked in the hospital knew how to get in, and that cart was aggressively raided. It wouldn't surprise me if they really were spending tens of thousands MORE than the cost of renting and stocking the scrub machine, to replace the stolen ones.
 
Promethean said:
So, ethanol works. What about isopropyl? I love the stuff, and apply it liberally to all my exploded ink pen disasters. I've even gotten white scrubs back to white, stainless, with judicious application of isopropyl and H2O2. Wonder how it would work for smells. I imagine just as well, and cheaper than vodka. Also, not wasteful of consumable EtOH. Waste not, want not, as they say.
Click to expand...

Hah! Good point. I don't know how isopropyl alcohol would work. I don't think I've known anyone that's tried that but let's be honest, enough re-enactors out there drink that leftovers would probably be consumed with the claim that it all totally went on the tent.
 
ace-burns-clothes-o.gif


iim9cbw7moqG3.gif
 
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Thangbill said:
When I was touring the anatomy lab at TT, I saw a couple of students (or residents) in their street clothes. One of them even drank soda and put his cup very close to the cadaver while doing dissection. I don't know how he does that or if that is healthy or even permissible, but I think it takes a lot of courage to do that.
Click to expand...
Courage and a natural lack of brain cells are eto different things. I believe the student you are talking about has more of the latter than the former.
 
I had 3 pairs for 16 weeks of anatomy. I just washed them at home - I usually did a load of just anatomy clothes - my scrubs, under shirts, leggings, socks, and under garments. But, there were also days when everything got thrown in all together and nobody died.

In theory you won't get too messy. I never did. We always had gowns on top of our scrubs though.

I would recommend making sure if you have long hair that it is always up. I found my hair picked up the smell faster than anything else. And that you get a pair of shoes just for anatomy lab. Those floors do get gross.

Just always make a habit of changing out of your stuff and showering when you're done. You get to the point where you don't notice the smell anymore and think you're safe. My husband was immediately disgusted every time I walked in the door after having been in lab haha.
 
Tintinnabula said:
Hah! Good point. I don't know how isopropyl alcohol would work. I don't think I've known anyone that's tried that but let's be honest, enough re-enactors out there drink that leftovers would probably be consumed with the claim that it all totally went on the tent.
Click to expand...

did you take organic chemistry yet?
 
1. Subscribe to netflix
2. Search "scrubs"
3. Hit "play" button
?????
Profit.
 
You people don't wash your scrubs for the whole block?? There's human stuff on there...D: I would walk out of dissections all greasy with a bunch of the liquified fat and formaldehyde around the midsection.
 
1. Wash scrubs
2. Run an empty load on the following settings: small and cold
3. Wash regular clothes (or not).
 
Psai said:
did you take organic chemistry yet?
Click to expand...

It's not really a question of organic chem, it's a question of what I can reasonably buy. For example here in the US : "Rubbing alcohol made using isopropanol is regulated to contains at least 355 mg of sucrose octaacetate (MSDS sheet) and 1.40 mg of denatonium benzoate (MSDS sheet) per 100 ml volume. Isopropyl rubbing alcohol also contains water, stabilizer and may contain colorants." I don't have a reasonable source for pure Isopropanol.

However, food-grade ETOH is usually... food-grade ETOH.
 
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