I work in Boston's Longwood Medical Area, one of the densest concentrations of hospitals in the country, and I often have this reaction when I'm out on the street among my work neighbors: "Dude. Ew."
As in: Do you have something nasty on those scrubs or booties and is it going to get on me if I walk past you? Isn't that supposed to be sterile? Can you really just stand under the cafeteria grease-trap vent and smoke a cigarette in disposable medical protective gear and then go back to work? Dude! Ew!
I'm an academic administrator, not a medical professional, and I don't work in an actual hospital. I've always assumed scrubs were meant to protect the wearer from transmission of disease. Hollywood has filled my head with images of beautiful doctors in blue or green scrubs getting splattered with bodily fluids during a particularly harrowing Code Blue.
