Friday, April 17, 2009

Operating Room differences

This morning I watched a procedure in the operating room (OR). First, I had to change into scrubs. I was a bit indignant, because get this, women wear pink scrubs. That is right, men wear blue/green scrubs, and we get pink ones! Nurses also get pink bouffants, but as students, we wear white bouffants. I thought this scrubs discrimination was a tad unfair. ALSO, we had to change into white socks and pink sandals. Isn't that wild? They change into open-toed shoes here! In the US, we specifically wear close-toed shoes in the OR to avoid blood/needles/blades/etc. from falling on our toes.

I looked pretty silly; my pants were too short, and I had on white socks and pink open-toed sandals. I wish I had taken a picture of myself...

Anyway, Japan definitely has no qualms about pointing out gender differences. My friend says we get different scrubs because of our different body figures, and while this may be true, I'm not sure we need to be decked out in a full bodysuit of pink!

4 comments:

  1. i can think of way too many people who would be delighted to have pink scrubs in the OR. -kevin

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  2. um, i would be delighted to be able to wear pink scrubs- it may actually push me to pursue a career in surgery :) when i was in seoul, i toured the bone marrow transplant unit, and they also make you take off your shoes and wear UV-sterilized opened toed sandals (with your socks)...i guess it makes sense, no need to track dirt into the immunosuppressed pts' rooms :) but in the OR, do you at least get to put booties over your feet? (yeesh..maybe their surgeries aren't as messy in japan as those in the US)

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  3. haha, no booties, at least not for us. AND I watched an ERCP, and they made me wear a pink radiation gown thing (sorry, the name eludes me)! haha, I guess it fit better than the huge male ones.

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  4. haha! i'm gonna order pink radiation lead shields for all my techs when i'm an attending :D (for men AND women)

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