There are certain things that I have noticed and will probably keep noticing that are different between Sweden and the UK. I think it'd be good if I write about them here, so they can stop occupying space in my brain. I am also feeling that I need a witness to my working years there, as it was a part of me that only I know and will remember.
The first time I saw women in scrubs outside in England, I thought there must be some thing going on, the parent picking child up in scrubs must be in some serious hurry. Turns out, no. Many people do this. It was specially evident outside the hospital around 5 pm. Different colours of scrubs leaving for home, as if it's totally normal. And it is.
In Sweden, people would want to go out to get lunch (which is a topic for another day), and I would see them change out of scrubs, some would just change the trousers as they would be visible under your jacket. Some had longer jackets so the scrubs were hidden and only leggings showed. Shoes were always changed to outerwear (that's also a topic for another day). I have never seen anybody out and about in scrubs.
Coming to scrubs, to reasons I can think of for not wearing them outside, first being hygiene, secondly they were the property of government. A ritual on first day at any workplace was to arrive early and be shown to the changing/locker rooms. In bigger hospitals scrubs room was separate from changing rooms. Tunics/polo shirts (separate for male and female body types), trousers (separate maternity ones as well), tshirts for underneath, dress/knee length, sleeveless jackets, full sleeved fleece, hijabs sometimes, and specialty specific stuff like the head cover in ortho surgery, etc. These were labelled by weight 50-60, 110-120kg and color labelled for height, yellow for tall etc. on labelled shelves.
You would always have a locker, change into hospital shoes/primary care sandals or whatever you found comfortable or appropriate. I think operation theatres also had front covered clogs/crocs/wooden sole shoes available there sometimes.
If you join a department and you are having difficulty finding your size, you would email/call somebody to request that I work here now, I need more 80-90kg medium height trousers and so on. There was a central system for washing and ironing these, so the used scrubs go in specific bins. The ones where you found a defect, a cut, a missing button etc, you would mark that spot with a specific tag and put them in a nominated bag. So the central hub of clothing basically distributed different sizes based on demand. We were encouraged to change scrubs daily or whenever they got dirty, not take them home, and not hoard our own size in lockers.
You would also preferably sanitize your hands before reaching for these clothes. Also, everybody was in the same scrubs, no matter what rank they were. The name tags would tell you what level of doctor this is for example.
Primary care and secondary care have different colors, even materials. I appreciated the cleanliness, so you won't touch a patient in home clothes and you won't touch something from home in your scrubs. You couldn't wear anything from home at work. I also liked the warm quilted vests that were available in same colors as scrubs, also by size. They even had pockets, so in colder months I'd have all my pens and things in the outer pockets as I'd not take off the vest the entire working day. In primary care they even had full sleeved fleece as the work is not as hands-on always. We'd remove those before meeting a patient.
That's it for today. Next time may be I will write an ode to Dictaphones.
Will now drop some Swedish words floating in my head related to scrubs:
Tvätt: laundry
Ren: clean
Smutsig: dirty
Använd: used
Tvätteriet: laundry service
Arbetskläder: work clothes/scrubs
Inneskor: indoor shoes
Väst: vest/jacket
Plastficka: plastic pocket insert for pens
Stödstrumpor: compression socks commonly colorful and worn by nurses
Byxor: trousers
Tröja: shirt
Tshirt: t-shirt
Klänning: dress
Omklädningsrum: changing room
Skåp: locker
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