Are Nurses in White Making a Comeback?

There are still many nurses of, shall we say, a certain age who remember the era of white uniforms—and it doesn’t seem all that long ago. Speaking from a female’s experience, those uniforms were white dresses, never pants, always starched and crisp because Perma-press hadn’t yet found its way into uniform shops.

Then, ever so surreptitiously, white pants suits began to replace the dresses. Before long, the tunic part of those suits began to show little details of color—piping around the hem of the sleeve, on the button placket, on the edge of the collar. Next thing we knew, the entire tunic was a solid color and, soon after, the pants were, as well. In short order there was a uniform free-for-all. Soft colors gave way to bright ones, which opened the door to multi-colored small prints, which paved the way for large graphic prints, all in the style of surgical scrubs.

Asked to put a time frame around the demise of the nurse-in-white, a source who has actually researched the subject figures the extinction of nurses dressed so as to be recognizable as nurses was complete by the beginning of the 1990s. It didn’t seem to matter that the patient couldn’t tell his nurse from the unit secretary, phlebotomist, dietary worker, physical therapist, housekeeper or some college kid visiting grandma. Hospitals were focused on keeping their nursing staffs happy and a relaxed dress code seemed to help with that effort.

But, then, hospitals began to feel the need to compete with one another for clients, so patient satisfaction moved way up on the importance scale, to at least an equal level with the happiness of the staff. Exit surveys of patients asked about every aspect of their hospital experience, the results of which soon brought about changes aimed at keeping them and their families as satisfied customers who wouldn’t think of going anywhere else for medical care.

Lo and behold, the surveys underscored the importance patients placed on wanting to be able to recognize their nurses. The patients spoke and the hospitals—at least, some of them—listened. There now seems to be a slow trend toward putting nurses back into white because that is what patients prefer.

Nurses often don’t, to borrow from Dylan Thomas, ‘go gentle into that good night’ when it comes to making the change—for some it’s more like kicking and screaming. But, once the change has taken place, nurses are surprised to find that they are taking pride in the fact that they, as a group, certainly do look more professional. The CNO at a hospital that recently instituted a white-for-nurses policy reports that the nurses are enjoying being recognized as nurses in situations outside the hospital. While waiting in line at the supermarket, for instance, other shoppers will ask if they are nurses and strike up a conversation. It is a brand new experience for them—and a positive one.

It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone who began working as a nurse after the early 90s had never experienced the joy of admiration by regular folks they might meet while picking up a loaf of bread on the way home from work—and that’s too bad. While I never sought the recognition, I remember that I really liked it. I’m glad that the return to white uniforms is providing this experience to a new (or, not so new, given that it has been nearly 20 years) generation of nurses. If any of you are reveling in this newfound experience, please share your story.