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In her 30 years as a nurse in rural Newfoundland, Karen Morris has seen the physical image of her profession change dramatically.

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The starched white uniform and distinctive cap first gave way to plain-coloured surgical scrubs, then to brightly coloured and patterned scrubs and then, well, to just about anything, from spandex pants to short shorts and even low-cut tops, she says.

“When you see a nurse coming in wearing jogging pants … it shows the patient, ‘I don’t really want to be here. I’m here and I want to be as comfortable and as casual as I can be,’ ” said the ambulatory-care nurse at Carbonear General Hospital on the Avalon Peninsula. “The professional level is not there.”

Similar garb, meanwhile, was adopted by an array of other hospital staff, leaving patients to guess who had arrived to clean their toilet and who to measure their blood pressure, she said. A year ago, Ms. Morris decided to make a statement, voluntarily adopting an all-white uniform that recalls, in part, a more formal past.

Now the Newfoundland & Labrador Nurses’ Union is urging all its members to move to a standard uniform of white top and black pants. They are part of a surprising movement across Canada’s health-care system, as employers and some employees push back against the informality in hospital corridors.