When did nurses stop wearing white uniforms and start wearing scrubs?

In the 80’s I think. When I worked in a hospital, nurses wore white (and nurses aids) housekeeping wore blue, the lab wore white lab coats, the laundry wore green, and I can’t remember what the kitchen wore, but they had their own color too. The only people who wore scrubs were the ones who worked in surgery, and they were sanitized and provided by the hospital.

My mom switched when the scrubs started being cheaper and better wearing than the white uniforms.

The hospital I work at still has white nurses uniforms. I look good in a dress but sadly I don’t get the little hat any more.

I could not say for sure, but I think about the 70s. IMO to logically “Borg everyone out”, so that the nurses would not be easily distinguished from the orderlies, and doctors, (—unless they were in their white coats_.

I wuld have to agree with @Judi it was sometime in the 80’s when hospitals slowly changed over.

Right around the same time we started replacing steel with plastic, leather with rubber, cork with Styrofoam…The push for ergonomics has ended most of my fantasies.

The move to scrubs in the late 70s/early 80s allowed for some personal expression, but I think a big part of it was the increase in men working in healthcare. It did leave patients confused – was that a nurse, an x-ray tech or a diet aide? During “Nurse’s Week” some of the nurses at the local hospital would wear traditional white with caps – the patients loved it. Lots of hospitals are moving to color coded scrubs and that seems to work well. The patient gets an explanation of the colors when they register, and now they know the person in royal blue is an RN.