The only ones wearing a long white coat should be doctors (& MAYBE pharmacists)

I don't know, but there was a guy I thought was a doctor for a few week before I found out he was an NP student.

Meh. It's never been all that cut and dry. Charge nurses have worn long white coats for decades as I understand it.

Laboratory techs should be able to wear them, as should laboratory students, make-up salesmen, and anyone else who likes the look of lab coats. Me? I'm not a laboratory guy, so I'm not gonna wear a lab coat. I'll wear a shirt and tie or I'll wear scrubs.

These days it doesn't matter since the badges have your job in 3 inch letters.

Go right ahead and wear your long coat, nurse, it still says "RN" in bold type right under your badge.

LossForWords said:

Charge nurses have worn long white coats for decades as I understand it.

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Citation needed.

Rendar5 said:

Laboratory techs should be able to wear them, as should laboratory students, make-up salesmen, and anyone else who likes the look of lab coats. Me? I'm not a laboratory guy, so I'm not gonna wear a lab coat. I'll wear a shirt and tie or I'll wear scrubs.

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Lab techs don't walk around the hospital and talk to patients. From my experience, patients are often confused regarding who there actual doctor is.

Also, I don't know why clinical pharmacologist wear white coats at all; they usually just stay outside of the patient room from what I've seen.

White coats and ties spread disease. This might not be an issue for too much longer when patient welfare begins to overcome the need for a traditional doctor appearance.

On a funny side note, when my dad was recovering from bypass surgery in a CICU, I would see this curious guy with a long white coat, but underneath white scrubs, and wearing white shoes. He didn't really look professional, and actually the all white outfit looked silly to me. I didn't know what to make of him, until I began to talk to him, and found out he was a nursing student from a local university. The best part of all of it is I saw others like him in long white coats, all men, while their female counterparts from the same school only had the white scrubs.

Nah. Just look at ID badges or look for MD/DO on coat. Lab coats aren't specific to doctors and I see no reason why they should be. Actually, physicians started wearing lab coats a long time ago to look more like the scientists to be more credible in their profession. So in a sense, physicians are the ones copying others.

Ray Finkle said:

Citation needed.


Lab techs don't walk around the hospital and talk to patients. From my experience, patients are often confused regarding who there actual doctor is.

Also, I don't know why clinical pharmacologist wear white coats at all; they usually just stay outside of the patient room from what I've seen.

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the giant MD on my name badge, and me saying my name and then identifying myself as their doctor is usually what does it for me. If there is a plan for other doctors to see the patient, I explain who's going to see them and for what. There's never any confusion and nurses at my place sometimes have lab coats on. and I never ever wear a lab coat.

Where I'm at, a ton of the case managers (who are RNs) where longer white coats. Still confused on that one...

Rendar5 said:

the giant MD on my name badge, and me saying my name and then identifying myself as their doctor is usually what does it for me. If there is a plan for other doctors to see the patient, I explain who's going to see them and for what. There's never any confusion and nurses at my place sometimes have lab coats on. and I never ever wear a lab coat.

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That works until the DNP shows up & introduces themselves as a doctor. While I am sure most, if not all, state 'Doctor of NP" or something like that, it is unlikely that patients know the difference b/w them & other people involved in their care. The patients have trouble keeping intern/resident/fellow/attending separate, then you add PA & NPs, then you add DNPs, then you add all the techs etc, so by the time they get done they usually do not know who's the one in charge.
I usually say I am Dr. X, I work FOR Dr. Y who is the boss...that usually helps puts things in perspective.

The lab coats just add to the confusion, so that the patients really have no idea who's a doctor & who's there just to draw blood . And NO ONE looks at the name tags !!!

I haven't worn a lab coat in years and neither do a majority of my partners. In fact if I see someone in the hospital that I don't know wearing a lab coat I assume it's a covering case manager or something.

Ray Finkle said:

Citation needed.

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Just anecdotal evidence. Old timey attending was complaining about just this thing the other day, but noted that they let the charge nurse wear a long coat too since he/she basically ran the floor. He was referencing his residency and guessing by his age I think he was talking about the 1970s.

ussdfiant said:

I haven't worn a lab coat in years and neither do a majority of my partners. In fact if I see someone in the hospital that I don't know wearing a lab coat I assume it's a covering case manager or something.

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Love this.

Only Lebron can wear Heats jersey with Lebron on the back when he's at work.

FutureInternist said:

That works until the DNP shows up & introduces themselves as a doctor. While I am sure most, if not all, state 'Doctor of NP" or something like that, it is unlikely that patients know the difference b/w them & other people involved in their care. The patients have trouble keeping intern/resident/fellow/attending separate, then you add PA & NPs, then you add DNPs, then you add all the techs etc, so by the time they get done they usually do not know who's the one in charge.
I usually say I am Dr. X, I work FOR Dr. Y who is the boss...that usually helps puts things in perspective.

The lab coats just add to the confusion, so that the patients really have no idea who's a doctor & who's there just to draw blood . And NO ONE looks at the name tags !!!

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B...B ....But "we don't want to be Doctors, we just have a doctorate of nursing!!!"

Some uniform standards would really be nice but with all the nurse ego in play its unlikely.

.

We should just get even longer white coats, like dragging on the ground long. They should actually be more like long white robes and come with a magic wand and a special hat, too.

Marcus Brody said:

We should just get even longer white coats, like dragging on the ground long. They should actually be more like long white robes and come with a magic wand and a special hat, too.

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Yeah, there could be a whole range of coat lengths. Maybe preclinical students get a really short, cropped jacket, like a shrug. Then the M3s and M4s get regular short coats. Residents have regular long coats, while attendings have floor-length coats. Then the department heads would actually have super-long coats that trail behind them, like a train. They'd need someone to follow around behind them to carry their coat's train, and keep it from dragging on the floor.

Marcus Brody said:

We should just get even longer white coats, like dragging on the ground long. They should actually be more like long white robes and come with a magic wand and a special hat, too.

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phltz said:

Yeah, there could be a whole range of coat lengths. Maybe preclinical students get a really short, cropped jacket, like a shrug. Then the M3s and M4s get regular short coats. Residents have regular long coats, while attendings have floor-length coats. Then the department heads would actually have super-long coats that trail behind them, like a train. They'd need someone to follow around behind them to carry their coat's train, and keep it from dragging on the floor.

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I agree that patients can get confused with all the white coats. When I was a volunteer, the other volunteers and I would get confused as to who is who. Everyone wore very similar scrubs and all types of healthcare workers wore white coats. Sometimes you couldn't see their badges or the print was too small. Since it was in an ER, most of the doctors didn't wear white coats.

FutureInternist said:

That works until the DNP shows up & introduces themselves as a doctor. While I am sure most, if not all, state 'Doctor of NP" or something like that, it is unlikely that patients know the difference b/w them & other people involved in their care. The patients have trouble keeping intern/resident/fellow/attending separate, then you add PA & NPs, then you add DNPs, then you add all the techs etc, so by the time they get done they usually do not know who's the one in charge.
I usually say I am Dr. X, I work FOR Dr. Y who is the boss...that usually helps puts things in perspective.

The lab coats just add to the confusion, so that the patients really have no idea who's a doctor & who's there just to draw blood . And NO ONE looks at the name tags !!!

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Dat comic sans

officedepot said:

I don't really have a problem with NPs or PAs wearing one. Nurses should only wear short ones. Any student should only wear short ones (despite how very much I hate them).

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*shrug* Why? Who cares? Patients don't have any idea what the length of the coat means, they just see a white coat. And there are some teaching hospitals where medical students wear full-length white coats. Personally, I really couldn't care less about them. While they may have meant something in the past, in this day and age, they really shouldn't symbolize anything in particular. I wear my white coat as little as possible because I just plain don't like it, and nearing the completion of M3, nobody's said anything about it. The only time I'll wear it is if the entire team is rounding in a white coat and dressed formally, not in scrubs.

I've worked with attendings who never wear them, and I've worked with other people who always have one on. The clearest thing to do with so many different types of people running around a hospital is really just make sure the individual's title/role is clearly identified in big letters on an ID badge. Heck, I've had conversations with patients about being a student and had them still proceed to call me a doctor. A short white coat wouldn't have suddenly clarified it for them.

Alternately, I wouldn't mind seeing more hospitals go the way of Mayo. I believe no one there wears white coats at all.

The rule on floors is this: anyone can wear anything, except for med students, who must always wear short white coat. At least its better than when I volunterred as a college student; they made me wear a ridiculous cobbler.

(looked kinda similar to what she's wearing)

Physicians just need to start wearing white coats with epaulets on them. And stars. Like 20 stars on each shoulder so the patient knows you're the one in charge. Maybe a big gold medal with MD around the neck. And a giant gold scalpel in a sheath at the left hip...

I went to the Car Show this week...even the people who wax the cars wear white coats now (i think it was mercedes-specific, though)

FutureInternist said:

That works until the DNP shows up & introduces themselves as a doctor. While I am sure most, if not all, state 'Doctor of NP" or something like that, it is unlikely that patients know the difference b/w them & other people involved in their care. The patients have trouble keeping intern/resident/fellow/attending separate, then you add PA & NPs, then you add DNPs, then you add all the techs etc, so by the time they get done they usually do not know who's the one in charge.
I usually say I am Dr. X, I work FOR Dr. Y who is the boss...that usually helps puts things in perspective.

The lab coats just add to the confusion, so that the patients really have no idea who's a doctor & who's there just to draw blood . And NO ONE looks at the name tags !!!

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Please do not ever type in large size comic sans font again. The internet community appreciates your cooperation.

Most attendings I've seen wear shirts and ties for the most part. Gotta do away with the ties though, they're basically germ heaven. When was the last time somebody washed a freakin tie unless it gets something on it/gets too wrinkled?

Whoops don't mean to exclude the ladies but I never have any idea what women are wearing anyway...

calvnandhobbs68 said:

Most attendings I've seen wear shirts and ties for the most part. Gotta do away with the ties though, they're basically germ heaven. When was the last time somebody washed a freakin tie unless it gets something on it/gets too wrinkled?

Whoops don't mean to exclude the ladies but I never have any idea what women are wearing anyway...

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Tie is optional at my school for that very reason. Im also in the camp of hating the white coat and will wear it as little as possible. I'm lovin my psych rotation right now b/c they are the first rotation to have said 'most of us dont wear a white coat.' I will say that I miss the pockets though. But that can be solved by wearing a blazer or something. In psych its not a problem tho because you dont need anything except maybe a pen.

calvnandhobbs68 said:

Gotta do away with the ties though, they're basically germ heaven. When was the last time somebody washed a freakin tie unless it gets something on it/gets too wrinkled?

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Same could be said of white coats. I only own two, and you know I'm not washing them on a q2 schedule.

I know a Family Practice doc who keeps track of when he wears his white coat. Apparently there was a study done that most patients are more comfortable if the doctor wears a white coat on the first couple visits (I'm assuming this was specific to family practice and excluding peds). After that they don't care as much.

Black Joker said:

Only Lebron can wear Heats jersey with Lebron on the back when he's at work.

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Lebrons jersey says James

skiz knot said:

Please do not ever type in large size comic sans font again. The internet community appreciates your cooperation.

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I shall try

lab coats are actually more appropriate for lab techs and researchers IMO. But that said, I am a little annoyed how donning a white coat suddenly makes someone an "expert" in something.

Comic Sans is the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes F'in Gutenberg.

I am on pediatrics right now, and I am hanging out with these sick poopy kids all day long, and they want us in the business cas/ white coats bull****.

What the crap.

skiz knot said:

Please do not ever type in large size comic sans font again. The internet community appreciates your cooperation.

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DNPs should have their names and titles written on their ID badges in comic sans to emphasize how much of a joke doctorate it is

Knicks said:

Do you agree with this statement? [which may or may not be a statement I agree with).

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Yes. With the addition of cosmethologists.

I like how pharmacists with pharmD's often call themselves doctors, just to feel self-important and smart.

fneverforget said:

I like how pharmacists with pharmD's often call themselves doctors, just to feel self-important and smart.

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Someone with a doctorate calling themselves Dr.? It's fine as long as it's not used to confuse patients who don't realize that dr. doesn't necessarily mean physician.

fneverforget said:

I like how pharmacists with pharmD's often call themselves doctors, just to feel self-important and smart.

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Or maybe it's because they earned a DOCTOR of pharmacy.

fneverforget said:

I like how pharmacists with pharmD's often call themselves doctors, just to feel self-important and smart.

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Ignorant comment.

fneverforget said:

I like how pharmacists with pharmD's often call themselves doctors, just to feel self-important and smart.

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Then let them. They usually studied pharmaceutical sciences longer than a physician studied medicine. Doctor means someone who is qualified teach. They've earned the title. I'd like to see a new intern teach medicine! Lol!

That being said, I personally think medicine is academically easier than pharmacy.

Ferocity said:

Ignorant comment.

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You got one scary Avatar! I'm talkin' PMS scary!

fneverforget said:

I like how pharmacists with pharmD's often call themselves doctors, just to feel self-important and smart.

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This I have not observed. Pharmacists that I work with and have been on rotations under at academic institutions are either squeamish about being called doctor or will let some nurses call them that as a sign of respect if that's their prerogative. The only one's who I've known to call themselves doctor usually have a couple sets of extra letters at the end of their names (BCPS, FACCP, FASCP, etc.) and/or are in teaching positions.

I might say that "often" is a stretch.

n=1

I guess I'm probably the only person who finds white coats to be uncomfortable.

islandCrazy said:

I guess I'm probably the only person who finds white coats to be uncomfortable.

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Fashion statements are not meant to be confortable.

I hate the white coat.