Originally posted by AJM
Take a look at the residents from the TV show, "Scrubs". Scrubs are the outfits they are all wearing in the hospital -- they kind of resemble pajamas. While they are medical uniforms, they are considered very casual. That is, residents generally only wear them if they are on-call or post-call, or if they are operating that day. It's also often the outfit of choice in the messier/high procedure units like the ICU, since you can get them dirty and it doesn't matter, as you can always exchange them.
At all the hospitals I've been at, scrubs are available to all residents, not just surgical personnel. And I've never seen a hospital that has different scrubs for surgery than regular scrubs.