Boldly colored hair?

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After reading my learned colleague's post, and being the dad of a 13 and a 10 year old, my mind immediately translated it into parent-ese:

"Actions have consequences".


mimelim said:
I run pretty libertarian, so at baseline, I think that people can and should do whatever the **** they want. I am all for people rocking their inner true self, even if it is rather far out on the 'freaky' spectrum. But, that is a personal choice and people judge you for your personal choices. While I consider this to be unfortunate and wrong, I don't think that it is disputable that this is a very real thing. A few things to recognize. #1 Lab science is not the same as medicine. While image is important in the lab, it is far less important than if you are working with patients every day. Trying to compare the attire of field biologists to physicians is a pretty hard. Harvard is very liberal in this regard compared to most of the country.

I think that fundamentally what this falls down to is a "me me me" mentality vs. a "service of others" mentality. Having out there style choices calls attention to you, when fundamentally our interactions with our patients is entirely about caring for them. When I see a patient in clinic, I am serving them. Am I being paid, yes. Am I getting something (education, training, experience etc) out of it, of course. But fundamentally, our day to day interaction is about caring for them. Putting them at ease is part of the job. I don't judge them for not agreeing with my libertarian viewpoints. Again, it isn't about me. It is about them.
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utmn said:
I had DREADLOCKS during my first research position. Turns out, the MD I worked with loved them. I did all my shadowing with them, all of my undergrad volunteering, and turns out I still got into med school.
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How is that evidence that they loved them? Did people explicitly state approval of your hairstyle, or did they merely tolerate it?

Also as stated by others, research does tend to be more laid back. Most scientists I've met wear sneakers and basically whatever is comfortable since they are on their feet/standing in one place constantly. However, you have to keep in mind that administrators (say in a federal lab, medical research institution like a medical school, etc.) tend to have MBAs. Finance is another conservative profession, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that many administrators tend to also be conservative. They may or may not go after an intern/student researcher for being "unprofessionally" dressed.
 
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7331poas said:
How about the decision between the doctor who chose to have a work appropriate haircut, AND is well dressed. Its not an either or.

In all honesty, if I am about to start a very risky procedure, I expect my doctor to be extremely serious about the situation. Serious about the risks and the idea that my life is at stake here.

If my doctor then showed up with pink hair and a seemingly happy go lucky appearance, that would concern me quite frankly.
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Oh no, an indicator that the physician might sometimes not be in the hospital! How shocking.

My point wasn't that it was an either-or, simply that there is an appearance far more eyebrow-raising which is INCREDIBLY common among physicians and yet not given as much BS as hair dye.
Womb Raider said:
100% don't dye your hair.

Also, if I were you, I'd put more stock into what the physicians and ad com members of this thread are saying than the random pre-meds.
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Not even the random pre-meds are saying to dye your hair if you want to work in medicine. I'm just calling out BS attitudes and interpretations of it that have been posted. Are those attitudes prevalent in the hospital? Yes, which is why I said you shouldn't dye your hair right now. But that doesn't mean the attitudes are right, just that they matter.
 
mehc012 said:
Oh no, an indicator that the physician might sometimes not be in the hospital! How shocking.

My point wasn't that it was an either-or, simply that there is an appearance far more eyebrow-raising which is INCREDIBLY common among physicians and yet not given as much BS as hair dye.

Not even the random pre-meds are saying to dye your hair if you want to work in medicine. I'm just calling out BS attitudes and interpretations of it that have been posted. Are those attitudes prevalent in the hospital? Yes, which is why I said you shouldn't dye your hair right now. But that doesn't mean the attitudes are right, just that they matter.
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Let me pose this hypothetical. Are you against say a person with a face tattoo yet is well groomed? Is this something that fits within your worldview given the rest of the character is well trimmed?

What if this tattoo was unseemly to some? What if it was excitatory yet legal?

Is there any limit to your stance which might cause a person's free time behavior to affect their work?
 
7331poas said:
Let me pose this hypothetical. Are you against say a person with a face tattoo yet is well groomed? Is this something that fits within your worldview given the rest of the character is well trimmed?

What if this tattoo was unseemly to some? What if it was excitatory yet legal?

Is there any limit to your stance which might cause a person's free time behavior to affect their work?
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What if the tattoo was of Donald Trump with his campaign slogan?
 
7331poas said:
Let me pose this hypothetical. Are you against say a person with a face tattoo yet is well groomed? Is this something that fits within your worldview given the rest of the character is well trimmed?

What if this tattoo was unseemly to some? What if it was excitatory yet legal?

Is there any limit to your stance which might cause a person's free time behavior to affect their work?
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El-Rami said:
What if the tattoo was of Donald Trump with his campaign slogan?
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Their decision to have a tattoo or dye their hair would not be what made me judge them. If they chose to include a message that I would judge them for in a normal conversation, like "Trump is America's last hope" or "f@#$ all minorities", that's a different story. But that's because I have a moral issue with racism, for example, whereas I do not find hair dye or tattoos morally wrong.

I would also like to think that people are able to change their course...if I were to unilaterally say "facial tattoos have no place on physicians", well, what about the person who has changed their path in life? Not all people know that they want to go into medicine from age 2. And some people are utter idiots when they're teens (or later), but grow up. So even if I had an issue with the decision to tattoo yourself, I would try to restrain it. My mom actually has a tattoo that she hates, but she keeps it around to remind her not to judge other people for theirs because you never know their story or what they feel about their own ink, even.

Anyway, I'm sure there are limits...I'm not a fully rational being, and sometimes I do not properly elucidate my views (or, yes, am somewhat hypocritical). If you continue delving for extremes, I'm sure you'll find those weak points. But that seems somewhat disingenuous when the entire time I have been saying "I think people can find a compromise between professionalism and expressing themselves...which I wish was acceptable."
 
N=1 but my friend went to her Dartmouth interview with pink and green hair and a nosering. She got in.
 
El-Rami said:
How is that evidence that they loved them? Did people explicitly state approval of your hairstyle, or did they merely tolerate it?
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She explicitly told me. Ymmv. I cut them before interviews but never felt that I missed an opportunity prior to starting med school because of them.


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JustaDO said:
Would the outcome have been the same if you didn't cut them prior? Speculate for us if you don't mind.
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I will never ever deny that many people would think dreads/bold colors to be inappropriate for med school- but I stand by my statement that it shouldn't matter for a research position, as op asked. Although, there is a guy at my md school with long dreads, which I think is cool.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app
 
oliviablond said:
I believe you should do everything you want. The key point here is to stay within your comfort zone. When I was 22, I dyed my hair in purple like this
9-light-lavender-and-silver-gray-hair.jpg

Image source
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Whyyyyyyy would you wake this up when it had finally died down? You're just going to provoke irritatingly condescending lectures about how this reflects your immaturity as a person and some fundamental unmet need for attention. Is that a ridiculous response? Yes. But c'mon, read the thread, and the 80 others like this, recognize that this isn't going to go down a useful track, and then let sleeping dogs lie, please.
 
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