Appallingly bad hygiene!

If I recall correctly, the nurses and doctors in surgery wear extra an covering over their scrubs.

My mom is an RN at a county hospital and works in the float pool (meaning she is called to whatever unit needs help: ER, the surgical ward, etc.). Sometimes she goes to buy groceries in her store after work still in her scrubs. I really don't think she carries that many more (surviving) germs on her clothes than normal folk like you and I do on a normal day.

It's obviously different for doctors performing surgery, with bodily fluids and whatnot, but like I said, they have that extra covering. (They wouldn't want to walk around the hospital in the same covering they performed surgery with either.)

There's this amazing thing that surgeons, nurses, and techs wear called surgical gowns. Scrubs are worn as general clothing and often to denote between different departments (at least at the Brigham) with ER and Trauma, OR, Maternity, labs and techs all wearing different colors. They're just as distinctive as the various lengths of lab coats.

Scrubs are NOT changed between patients. If there is reason to change, such as bodily fluids crossing a gown, staff changes. Typically staff that are not in ORs wear surg gowns/coats when leaving the area, even just to go to the cafeteria.

Leaving the hospital in your scrubs isn't a breach of hygiene. If there was no contamination to the gown or scrubs, there's no reason for someone to change. Scrubs don't go through any special sterilization process and staff (at least at the Brigham) are free to wash their scrubs at home.