What's your take on "Mandatory Scrub Color" policy for Dental Students?

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Your take on mandatory scrubs in all pre-clinic & clinic situations?

  • My school's professional dress code with an option to wear scrubs (any color) is ok.

    Votes: 29 43.3%
  • I agree with mandatory scrub colors. (I don't have to think about what to wear).

    Votes: 22 32.8%
  • I think scrubs are unprofessional. Only professional dress should be allowed.

    Votes: 9 13.4%
  • I don't have an opinion either way.

    Votes: 2 3.0%
  • No opinion but students shouldn't be booted from clinic for misc. scrubs/professional dress.

    Votes: 5 7.5%

  • Total voters
    67
  • Poll closed .

Darksunshine

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I would like to ask all the SDNer's to vote on and give their feedback on mandatory scrub color per class policy. Meaning, how would you feel if you were told that you HAD to wear “maroon” for 4 years of pre-clinic and clinic? And if you choose to wear blue scrubs, your dental school (which by the way you are paying a significant amount to attend) may choose to fail you out of pre-clinic tests and revoke your clinic privileges if you don’t comply. (Professional clothing is not an acceptable alternative, other colors and shades are not ok, in addition keep in mind you will be wearing those scrubs 24/7 during your jr & sr year).

I am gathering "anecdotal" research from the students’ point of view to write an article in our campus student newsletter (medical, pharmacy, dental, optometry, nursing, etc.) Please list:
• whether or not your school has tried this, (currently using it)
• you go to a public or private school
• whether or not your class follows it and it would also be helpful to add if you have these rules, how well they are enforced, if at all.
• Any thing else you feel is relevant (like cost of tuition, you don’t like the fact you look like an inmate, why they don’t want to “spoon feed” you didactic information but yet tell you what to wear…, etc.)

To give some background, our dental school has tried (not successfully I might add) to mandate by announcing to freshman and sophomores (without changing the writing in their policy manual which still states a professional dress code is OK) a mandatory scrub colors (specific shade) for the 1st and 2nd year classes. Ironically, the 3rd and 4th years are not required to comply. Regardless of what the rules are, just as in the “real world”, not everyone will follow them all of the time. Apparently they are grandfathered in, even though it was the now 4th years and some of the graduated class that caused this "lowest possible standard" idea to be instituted in the first place.

The majority of the 1st and 2nd year students are against it, and want to be able to choose professional attire or any color of scrubs they would like. The 2nd year class has gone to great lengths to engage the deans of the dental school with a petition and possible solutions to this “judgment call” issue. Many of the 3rd and 4th years don’t agree with this new mandate and don’t believe that we (1st and 2nd years) should have to pay for the few who incurred the wrath of their peers and/or faculty. I feel we don’t believe in mommy government, where we all need to be controlled and loose our “professional” judgment because a few of our classmates are in need of a valuable lesson in professional attire for the dental professional. One bad apple shouldn’t cause the rest to be thrown out. :idea:


Please give your feedback with on this issue! Thanks! :thumbup:

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^ What school do you attend?
 
We are running into the same problem at our school. However, I am a DS3 and I have been grandfathered in. The 1st years dont seem to care much or grumble too much about it. Personally, I really wouldnt care if I had to only wear one color. As long as there clean I dont care :laugh:
 
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IUSD DDS students can wear blue or green, but hygiene & assisting students are apparently on the Crayola dress code. From what I've seen, they can get away with wearing just about any color invented by God or man.
 
Sk8aBull said:
^ What school do you attend?

I attend O.H.S.U. :D


And to those who have voted and shared their opinion so far, thank you. :love:

Several people at my school will only share their opinion in anonymity because of fear of reprisal. A few have tried posting articles in our school (dental only) newsletter and having received less than positive attentions have passed the baton on.
 
ItsGavinC said:
We can wear three shades of blue at Arizona. I personally dislike scrubs though.

I LOVE wearing scrubs to work, afterall I basically get to wear comfy pajamas and sneakers all day long! :thumbup: :D Plus being the boss, I can wear what ever colors I choose, I choose some vivid ones.

I will say it is kind of fun deciding each day whether I should wear the scrubs of my favorite NFL team, MLB team, my alma matter, the cow print scrubs, the aquarium prints, the tropical prints, etc, etc, etc. It's often a nice non verbal "ice breaker" with patient too, since sub consciously you seem a bit more approachable when wearing a non tradtional outfit/color than a classical formal lab coat/tie IMHO.
 
I've always wondered about people that wear scrubs to school or work all day. I see nurses all the time at lunch or on the bus in the same scrubs they wore while seeing patients. Is it the same for students? Doesn't it bother you that you get blood and saliva on your clothes, yet wear it all day, get in your car, etc?

It's "professional" dress all the time at UOP. We're not allowed to wear scrubs to school at all. We get clinic gowns to wear over our clothes, but we have to take them off before leaving clinic. No sneakers, jeans, sweats, t-shirts or anything with a prominent logo on the front. For guys, shirts have to have collars and be tucked in your pants. Ties encouraged, but in most part optional unless you have radiology block. The radiology prof will kick you outa class and you'll be on his $hit list for the rest of dental school. After a couple quarters, I've been brainwashed enough to think the dress code is actually good for us.
 
DrJeff said:
I LOVE wearing scrubs to work, afterall I basically get to wear comfy pajamas and sneakers all day long! :thumbup: :D Plus being the boss, I can wear what ever colors I choose, I choose some vivid ones.

I will say it is kind of fun deciding each day whether I should wear the scrubs of my favorite NFL team, MLB team, my alma matter, the cow print scrubs, the aquarium prints, the tropical prints, etc, etc, etc. It's often a nice non verbal "ice breaker" with patient too, since sub consciously you seem a bit more approachable when wearing a non tradtional outfit/color than a classical formal lab coat/tie IMHO.

Dr Jeff actually came up with the idea of using multi colored scrubs after watching the movie "Heartbreak Ridge" in order to get out of paying for his staffs' lunches each time that they fail to guess and wear the same color scrubs that he himself dons each morning. One day his staff will smarten up and start consulting with Dr Jeff's wife who is the one who chooses and lays out his scrubs for the day. :) :) ;) ;)
 
i like the choice of wearing either dress clothes or scrubs (any color, within reason) to clinic. personally i am not as comfortable in scrubs as in professional clothes, and although i don't have a problem with people wearing scrubs, i do feel that people look nicer/ more professional in their prof. clothing. We have a whole manual of official guidelines as to how you can and can't dress in clinic, which goes right down to specifying what earrings and nail polishes girls can wear, but from my observations, basically as long as you wear nice pants or scrubs and no open toed shoes, clothes that support other universities, dirty lab coats or something really strange, you wouldn't get in trouble. At orientation they told us that they have had problems with a few individuals dressing inappropriately, but they deal with those people on a personal basis.

in lectures and preclinic (which are on a separate floor from patient care), we are officially strongly encouraged to dress professionally or in scrubs, but in reality everyone wears anything they want and nothing is said :)
 
We can choose to wear scrubs or professional attire with white coat. As far as scrubs are concerned, any color/shade/print is acceptable.

I just need to get my hands on one of those bright orange outfits that prisoners wear.
 
This is interesting! Here I thought only NSUCDM did the mandatory scrub colors thing. At NSUCDM, the mandatory scrub colors were implemented 3 years ago, 2003-2004 (my D2 year). Initially the policy was every dental class would wear one color and that color would be yours all 4 years. Then the policy changed within a week to each dental year would be one specific color as follows:

D1: Forest Green
D2: Navy Blue
D3: Light Blue
D4: Light/Mint Green
Post-Grad: Royal Blue

At first, students b!tched and moaned, but now I believe the system is working quite well. You learn the color system, then you'll know who's who. During my first year prior to this mandatory scrub colors policy, we were able to dress up, dress down, scrubs of any color, wear your white coats, or don't wear your white coats. Ladies would show up to class dressed up like they were going to club on a Saturday night, let me just tell you, it was difficult to concentrate on lectures and stop salivating. Down here in South Florida, ladies wear very little with sexy 5-inch stilleto sandles.

However, with the mandatory scrubs policy, I do miss the opportunity to dress up in a shirt & tie like we used to do very Friday back in my 1st year. That wasn't a set policy, but a large group of us guys would do that on very Friday.

I personally don't mind the mandatory color coded scrubs, but would like to see the CDM purchase at least one set for every student each year since we're required to purchase a different color scrubs as we progress through 4 years of dental school. Now that I am in my 4th year, I own 12+ set of scrubs, 3 sets in each color listed above.
 
I wished my dental had a mandatory color. We had people wearing every shade of the rainbow and then some. Some people were wearing the "nurse" scrubs.......the one with all the different patterns.
 
crazy_sherm said:
I've always wondered about people that wear scrubs to school or work all day. I see nurses all the time at lunch or on the bus in the same scrubs they wore while seeing patients. Is it the same for students? Doesn't it bother you that you get blood and saliva on your clothes, yet wear it all day, get in your car, etc?
We were required to wear a white lab coat regardless of attire.

As a D1, we got to choose (by class vote) what color we would have as a class. The only colors that weren't available were those of the upper classes. Even after voting and choosing a color, there was no regulation of what color you wore. The only time I heard anyone complain was when a buddy of mine wore a bright, cherry-red set. Several of the older profs asked him not to wear them again.
 
groundhog said:
Dr Jeff actually came up with the idea of using multi colored scrubs after watching the movie "Heartbreak Ridge" in order to get out of paying for his staffs' lunches each time that they fail to guess and wear the same color scrubs that he himself dons each morning. One day his staff will smarten up and start consulting with Dr Jeff's wife who is the one who chooses and lays out his scrubs for the day. :) :) ;) ;)

In my office we actually have 1 day a week (Tuesday)where we all where the same scrubs. In football season we wear New England Patriots Scrubs, In baseball season, we actually have a choice based on rooting prefernce between Boston Redsox :thumbup: or New York Yankees :thumbdown: , and in between, which tends to be NCAA basketabll tournament time, we all wear our UCONN scrubs.

The rest of the week, its wear what ever colors/prints you want, or as it tends to be in my case, wear which ever ones aren't in the dirty laundry bin ;) :D
 
DrJeff said:
In my office we actually have 1 day a week (Tuesday)where we all where the same scrubs. In football season we wear New England Patriots Scrubs, In baseball season, we actually have a choice based on rooting prefernce between Boston Redsox :thumbup: or New York Yankees :thumbdown: , and in between, which tends to be NCAA basketabll tournament time, we all wear our UCONN scrubs.

The rest of the week, its wear what ever colors/prints you want, or as it tends to be in my case, wear which ever ones aren't in the dirty laundry bin ;) :D

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I like it. No wonder you have a such successful practice. In addition to possesssing the BEST clinical skills of any GP to ever come out of UCONN, you obviously know how create a happy work environment for your staff.

Speaking of the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry, the guy I work with most is a die hard Yankees fan. He went to a game in Boston wearing "NY" plastered all over himself and reported back later that he felt lucky to get out of Fenway alive. He said blue stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of red.
 
groundhog said:
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I like it. No wonder you have a such successful practice. In addition to possesssing the BEST clinical skills of any GP to ever come out of UCONN, you obviously know how create a happy work environment for your staff.

Speaking of the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry, the guy I work with most is a die hard Yankees fan. He went to a game in Boston wearing "NY" plastered all over himself and reported back later that he felt lucky to get out of Fenway alive. He said blue stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of red.

I tend to find that the happier my staff is, the better the overall work place environment is. Plus, who says that you have to fit the model of the stereotypical dentist attire/appearance - I pride myself in definatly breaking that mold!

As for the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, I can speek from personel experience that wearing my Red Sox Jersey/hat down in the Bronx does bring one's personel safety into question also. Tough though to say whats a "worse" environment, wearing a "NY" in Boston or a "B" in NY :eek: :confused: :scared:
 
:thumbup:

DrJeff said:
I tend to find that the happier my staff is, the better the overall work place environment is. Plus, who says that you have to fit the model of the stereotypical dentist attire/appearance - I pride myself in definatly breaking that mold!

As for the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, I can speek from personel experience that wearing my Red Sox Jersey/hat down in the Bronx does bring one's personel safety into question also. Tough though to say whats a "worse" environment, wearing a "NY" in Boston or a "B" in NY :eek: :confused: :scared:


:thumbup: I completely agree with you, why do we all need to fit into a "cookie" cutter mold. Professionalism isn't a specific color or uniform.

And to those of you who have clicked on this link and haven't voted: (you know the ones that have looked at it 500 plus times but didn’t weigh in)

PLEASE VOTE!!!! I have to admit it is blowing my mind that almost as many people that believe in the freedom of choice equals those who don't want to think for themselves (and I wonder how many of them are administrators who forgot what it was like to be in dental school) ... but heh, I wanted your opinions and I thank all who had the courage to put them down in the form of a vote. However, I know this forum has been inaccessable quite regulary due to technical difficulties over the past week.

The poll is closing soon, and just maybe it might matter to me and my comrades in fighting for our "right" to choose our own clothes for the next 4 years.

Thanks, again.
 
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