Emporium of Medicinal Wonderments: In an ongoing series, the curious men and women of The Atlantic bombard me with their physiological curiosities.

[C.E. Brock/FOBO]

Heather Horn: Why do I see doctors wearing their scrubs to go get lunch? As in, across the street from the hospital, in Whole Foods. Do they just walk out of surgery and then drag their disease-laden scrubs through the quinoa at the salad bar?

Sometimes, yes. Scrubs-outside-the-hospital has been an issue for a while. Lots of places have policies against it, but it still happens. To be fair, though, most people you see probably aren't walking right out of surgery or anything.

Then why are they wearing scrubs?

I mean scrubs used to be something only doctors and their assistants wore, in the operating room, and then they'd change back into their suits and whatnot afterward. But now in a lot of places they're an accepted uniform for almost anyone who works in a hospital, in and out of the OR. Doctors and nurses, but also technicians, lab workers, sometimes even receptionists.

No way. Why would people willingly wear those things?

You're basically wearing pajamas to work, so it's liberating. And I think media played a role in making the appearance acceptable. It's what they wore on ER, etc. Not that it matters particularly that they're scrubs; it's more the fact that they didn't change out of what they wore when they were around sick people and contaminated things. They have to be bringing some infectious organisms with them a fair amount of the time.