Half a century has passed since I began my 40-year career in the healthcare industry. From those early days, until more recently when I became a healthcare consumer—including too many times as a patient—many changes have taken place in our healthcare delivery system. Notwithstanding those changes, scrubs and white lab coats are now still worn by a multitude of healthcare workers that are neither perioperative nurses nor medical professionals. 
 
The purpose of this article is to view their use from their original purpose to today’s function from the perspective of the patient who is traumatized by what ...