You may have noticed several decorated white scrub tops hanging overhead in the north entrance to the Camille Kendall Academic Center, near the Green Grove Café during the week of May 2nd. The stringing of the scrub tops is a University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON) tradition. As early as the 1920’s graduating nurses on the Baltimore campus used to decorate their uniform tops and use ropes to string them from their dorm room windows across the street to the School of Nursing building. When their dorm, Parson’s Hall, was demolished in 1997, the tradition died out, but has been revived in recent years.
Decorating the tops gives students a way to say, “Good-bye,” “Thank you,” or “I survived!” It’s also their way of expressing their personalities through the plain white top they’ve been required to wear for the past two years. Some are sweet, some are funny, some are pretty, but they all have heart. Just like the UMSON nursing students!
See the 2011 University of Maryland School of Nursing at USG’s Scrub Tops: