The excitement ratchets up the moment Laura Moreland carries two gift bags into the lab in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing.
Several students rush over as Moreland starts pulling out resealable plastic bags with what seem to be small pieces of cloth inside.
“I like this one a lot!”
“I love it!”
“That’s so cute on you!”
One student even breaks out into a bouncy little dance.
Their enthusiasm stems from the scrub caps Moreland, a student in the nurse anesthesia program at UTC, has made and is pulling from the plastic bags.
Colorful fabrics. Playful designs such as Christmas lights, Van Gogh-esque swirls and bright flowers. Saucy sayings such as “Spicy like Propofol,” an anesthesia drug that burns on injection, and one for Valentine’s Day that says, “Be Ketamine,” another anesthesia drug.
“I’ve always done artsy type of stuff,” says Moreland, who grew up just south of Atlanta.
The caps also have a practical side. Moreland designed them to be more comfortable than the familiar blue caps, which have seams that can become uncomfortable across the forehead when worn for long periods of time – such as a standard nursing shift.
“I know it sounds weird, but when you’re wearing them every day, they can really irritate your forehead. So I tried to make these really soft ones,” Moreland says.
The caps are a big hit with others in the UTC nursing program.
“The basic blue scrub caps are terrible. They don’t protect your hair from microbes and, likewise, they don’t protect your patients from your contaminated hair. It’s like wearing toilet paper on your head,” says Rachel Firestone, a student in the CRNA nurse anesthesia master’s program and the dancer when Moreland first brings in the caps.
“So when Laura figured out a way to add just the slightest bit of structure while also keeping my favorite aspects of soft material with loose fit and adjustable elastic, I could have just kissed her. I’m not exaggerating.”
Moreland is a cap-making hit not just at UTC but on her Etsy site. She named her enterprise “KetamineandSprinkles,” a combination of the drug and her love of cake baking.
“We all love when she brings her delicious goodies to class. She truly brings so much joy to those around her,” says Kelly Lau, another nurse anesthesia student and lover of Moreland’s caps.
Moreland said she started making caps – which cost $20 each – in October 2022. She’s since sold about 400 of them across the country.
As part of the nursing program, anesthesia students work at Erlanger Hospital for on-site clinicals. Folks there noticed Moreland’s caps, too.
“I started by making them for me, and then I made a couple for my classmates,” she says. “The people at work were asking me where I got them, so I made some for them. Then I decided to open a little Etsy store, thinking it was going to be a fun thing to do.”
A registered nurse for 15 years, Moreland decided to pursue a degree as a nurse anesthetist in 2021. “I have six months and 26 days left,” she says.
For five days each week, she lives in an apartment in Chattanooga. She then heads back to her husband and two sons in Fayetteville, Georgia, for the weekend.
Her sons – 14-year-old Cole and 10-year-old Logan – help her cut fabric when she’s home. Her husband, Adriel, bought sewing equipment so she could make caps faster and easier.
“I can probably make 10 to 20 a day now if I sit down and focus,” she says.
Firestone has tried her share of scrub caps and says none come close to Moreland’s.
“She nailed it. It’s the perfect scrub cap, hands down. And she found cute fabric to boot.