Halloween is less than a week away and that means so many things. It means that candy is still filling the shelves of most stores, parties are being prepped for every day, and all the best costumes are gone!

Fear not, dear reader. Keep scrolling down and we’ll cover the top ten last minute and low effort healthcare costumes for this spooky season!

The Doctor/The Nurse/The Patient

For obvious reasons, this costume is the easiest. Wear any set of scrubs, a doctor’s coat, or a patient’s gown for the night to complete the look.

The Botched Patient 

This one is slightly more involved. While dressed as a patient, splatter fake blood in small doses on your costume. Add blue and purple to areas around your face to make it look like it is swollen before putting bandages around it to make it look like plastic surgery gone wrong. Add directional lines and accessories like a fake needle still stuck in the skin for a funny effect.

The Backless Gown

Meant to be a funnier costume, the backless gown has you dress up as a patient. Tie the gowns back loose around you and wear a fake butt under skin toned bottoms to make it look as though your butt is showing through. If you can’t find a fake butt, simply stuffing skin toned underwear or shorts can five the same effect.

The 72 Hour Shift

This one is funny because it’s true. Healthcare workers often work long and thankless hours, especially EMTs. Wear a black or dark blue button down and comfortable matching pants. Wear boots if you can, but any sneaker with a grip will do. Add fanny packs and extra pockets however you can and stuff them with whatever you think people will need at the party. To give the finishing touches, add dramatically dark circles under and around your eyes.

For extra flair, you can add a timer. Once the timer goes off, either immediately “fall asleep” or begin partying like crazy to signify that your 72 hours are over.

The Zombie Apocalypse

Make yourself Patient Zero with this spin off of a classic costume. Add some dirt, blood, and small tears to a patient gown and give yourself a classic zombie make-over of yellowish-gray skin, sunken flesh, and some fake teeth. If you want to have a little extra fun with it, add a hospital name tag declaring yourself patient zero and have extras made up with other numbers for anyone else you touch throughout the night.

The Retro

Very similar to our first design, the retro look takes us back to yester-year and allows us to have some creative fun with our costumes. From the Civil War to the late 80s, you can find some easy variations of doctor nurse outfits that will be a hit at any party. If you have a group of people that are all looking to dress up together, have each person choose a different era to represent to show off the full spectrum of fashion from the medical world..

The Malpractice

A great mix of funny and terrifying, this costume has you dressing up as a medical professional, preferably a surgeon, and arming yourself with a not-so-clinical weapon, such as a hatchet or a chainsaw. Spray fake blood on the weapon and your costume to give a great visual effect of someone who should not be allowed in the medical field.

The Daytime Television

This costume will be best shown off with 2 or more people, otherwise, you might just look really pretty for no reason. Have you and your friends dress up as different medical professionals, all with your hair nicely done and wearing semi-sparkly makeup. When you come across each other in the party, out of a random dramatic scene that you might expect from a daytime opera before storming away from each other like nothing had even happened.

The Apple a Day

An easy costume based on an old saying. Dress up like a doctor and, with either the help of a friend or by jerry-rigging it yourself, tie an apple to a fishing line and attach that to yourself so it follows you around. Try to do this so it stretches slightly away from you and off the ground or it might get accidentally ignored or stepped on. Any time someone mentions it, act terrified and try to run away because, as we all know, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

The Mad Scientist 

Last but not least is the Mad Scientist. Lab techs and pharmacists may not have hundreds of television shows about them, but they do have some insanely fun gadgets to play with. You can take this as a medieval costume and dress up as you think a yester-year pharmacist might, maybe playing up on old superstitions to create a witch-in-the-woods effect.

You can also take this as a more modern challenge and maybe cover your eyebrows, blow your hair back as though you were in an explosion, add ash around your face and hair for the same effect, and carry around a beaker that looks to be bubbling over or steaming.

These are only a few fun ways to be creative last minute during this holiday season, but there are always more ways one can have fun! Check out our guide to getting in the holiday spirit to get yourself started!

Maybe you want to celebrate the festivities with a new job. If that is true, apply to one of our open opportunities here or send us an updated resume here so we can connect you with a recruiter today!