Do you know why surgeons wear blue and green scrubs during surgeries?

Scrubs are the germ-free clothes worn by surgeons, nurses, physicians and other workers occupied inpatient care in hospitals. Basically, scrubs are made for surgeons and others to use when purifying themselves before going inside the operation room or doing surgery.

Originally scrubs are known as surgical greens because of its color. It is very simple, easy to wash and cheap to discard if damaged or color becomes faded.[irp]

Scrubs used to be white, the color of cleanliness. Eerier, Doctors, and nurses used to wear white scrubs to give the hospital a sense of cleanliness. But now, nurses wear all kinds of colors except white and doctors wear green or blue scrubs. It’s not a doctors’ selection because doctors all over the globe wear the same color Apron.

In the early 20th century, a leading unnamed doctor switched the color of his scrubs to green because according to him it was feasible for a surgeon’s eye during a major operation, according to an article published in 1998.

There are two reasons why surgeons blue and green scrubs. Firstly, if a person stares at one color for a longer duration, such as red, their brain becomes less sensitive to the color and the red signal attacking the brain gets closed up.

Looking at something green again and again can allow someone’s eyes to be more responsive to variations in red. The same result occurs when you go outside in winters and see the sunlight reflected off the snow.

 

Secondly, if a doctor gives a temporary rest to his eyes by looking up from a patient and seeing pure white color, green spots become visible on the white as our optical nerves turn back on and adjust themselves again.

Same spots we can see after a camera flash. Also, we can find a green color as neutral even if we study in the spectrum. The mixture of bright theater lights and an all-white surrounding leads to eyestrain for the doctor and team.

The green color is the opposite of red on the color wheel so by looking at green around them, the doctor’s eyes get relaxed, trying to adjust again, keeping them sharp and fresh to see the shade of the human body easily.

 

It suits well with surgical equipment and doesn’t need any consideration. It reduces eye fatigue, helps in relaxing and making red spots less prominent.

When you look at any color on the color wheel, it makes your brain more sensitive if you see its opposite color. Anyone can try this at home by staring at something red for 30 seconds to a minute and then rapidly looking at a white blank paper. You can see the green spots on the figure. This is your optical nerve. 

So it’s not a choice of color or choice of a doctor but there are actual reasons behind it. It helps surgeons and doctors to reduce the possibilities of making faults during an operation in Operation Theater.