Dress code as a doctor?

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Van Chowder

Van Chowder

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Hey all, im jsut wondering if there is an official dress code for docs? Is this something that varies from place to place? One day( 5 years fom now) when I am a resident , will I be able to come to work in jeans, tennis shoes andd a cool t-shirt with a glow in the dark space ship on it? Thanks!!

ummm not trolling btw I actually wnana know
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If you end up having a private practice way in the future, you can probably come in to work wearing whatever you want (assuming it's not offensive, dirty, etc, and doesn't border on indecent exposure). But, as in any field, be prepared to have some patients or coworkers question your ability, maturity, or professionalism. Once you're established and have a solid patient base, as long as you're not offending anyone, you can probably wear whatever. In the hospital, you'll probably be wearing scrubs most of the time. (confirm/deny?) I imagine some places have written dress codes.

(by 'offensive,' I am referring to clothes with profanity, racist/sexist/classist/homophobic/etc statements, pictures of naked chicks or dudes, and stuff of that nature)
 
A patient is going to like you better and trust you more if you dress well. The white coat works for some and may create problems for others (White Coat Syndrome). Many doctors in private practice choose to wear a dress shirt and tie only which is a good choice in my opinion.
 
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As a resident there is no way you will be able to go to work in jeans and a "cool" t-shirt. The first attending who spots you will send you to the locker room to change into scrubs (if those are even allowed).

When you are an attending you MAY be able to get by with jeans or something, but I'd bet that unless you are a pretty powerful attending, the hospital administration will have a word with you pretty quickly. The only time I've seen attendings wear jeans to work is on the weekends. Sometimes they'll come in wearing nice jeans and a professional-looking top.
 
While jeans and a t might be a little extreme...
I know a resident who wears non dress, non denim pants, an untucked polo and nice sneakers to work every day. He pulls the "peds" card that little kids are afraid of people who dress up (specifically white coats).

You also might get a little more wiggle room if you go into a specialty with little/no patient contact (eg path/rads), but I can't confirm this, with more wiggle the further you go up the ladder. I'm sure if you become an ME you can wear what you like to work most days.
 
I can only speak for privat clinics as my dad work in one. He has probably 15 plane white collar t-shirts which he always wears to work along with mostly neutral cord pants and sometimes jeans... I dont think he ever wears his white coat... But he has been practicing for over 27 years, so he is a hardcore ingrown habit person lol... My mom and sister JUST barly got him to swicht out the 15 year old gray, worn out shoes he always wore at work lol... He really dosent give a **** about stuff like that... But as long as he does a proper job I dont think anyone else cares couse its nutral and not to sloppy (+clean)
 
I've seen a range from full suit to kakhis and polo to collared shirt and tie with kakhis to jeans and polo with a baseball hat. I have never seen a tshirt with jeans.

The guy that wears the polo and jeans with hat is one of the hospital studs, so he can kind of do what he wants.
 
Dr. House always wears tennis shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt worn under an open sport coat. Can doctors in real life get away with this?
 
I worked at a family medicine clinic where most of the doctors just wore khakis/slacks, a tucked in polo shirt, and their white coat.
 
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Some of the docs that I shadowed wore really cute/stylish dresses with flats. I was pleasantly surprised. :thumbup:
 
There is a thing called professional dress code in the hospital. Basically it goes like this:

1. You have to dress professionally at all times, that means men are supposed to be wearing button down shirt and slacks and no sneakers. Females are supposed to be wearing dress, or shirt / blouse + skirt / pant.

2. You can only wear scrubs under certain circumstances, e.g. when you are going to the OR or some sort of a procedure room, when you are on call, or when you are in ICU (depends on the attending)

3. It is often recommended or required that you have to dress in your professional clothes to attend lectures / seminars / conferences.

4. They might go as far as asking you to wear your dress clothes when you leave the hospital, i.e. no scrubs outside of the hospital grounds.

Some hospitals / schools strictly enforce this while other schools are more loose. It depends on where you end up.
 
IMHO it depends on your practice environment, specialty and patient population.

I have a high maintenance population with high expectations. Today, in the office I wore a cream and black cashmere sweater with a black shell underneath, black linen pants and black snakeskin sandals. In the OR I am obviously wearing scrubs.

I have worn jeans to the hospital but only for weekend rounds and they are dark denim, always worn with a blouse and jacket and heels.

The specialties and environments in which you can wear jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt to work would be very very few. The residencies in which you can wear such would be...uh...none.
 
Winged Scapula said:
I have a high maintenance population with high expectations. Today, in the office I wore a cream and black cashmere sweater with a black shell underneath, black linen pants and black snakeskin sandals.
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Is it weird that I have no idea what a "black shell" is? Women's clothing/fashions confuse the hell outta me. For guys, it's pretty simple. If you've got a collar + tie, and you don't have jeans or sneakers, you're probably good to go. For women it's much more open to interpretation, which I've heard some women complain about actually. One of our clinical professors actually made a point of telling us to dress professionally. "For the guys," he said, "that means a tie. For women, well, it's whatever you girls do to look professional."

I've also heard that definitions are a bit more formal on the East coast vs. West, but as I don't have experience with both I dunno.
 
WellWornLad said:
Is it weird that I have no idea what a "black shell" is? Women's clothing/fashions confuse the hell outta me. For guys, it's pretty simple. If you've got a collar + tie, and you don't have jeans or sneakers, you're probably good to go. For women it's much more open to interpretation, which I've heard some women complain about actually. One of our clinical professors actually made a point of telling us to dress professionally. "For the guys," he said, "that means a tie. For women, well, it's whatever you girls do to look professional."

I've also heard that definitions are a bit more formal on the East coast vs. West, but as I don't have experience with both I dunno.
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IMHO most women clearly know what's professional and what's not. Those who claim to be "confused" are really trying to push the boundaries.
 
MsKrispyKreme said:
Some of the docs that I shadowed wore really cute/stylish dresses with flats. I was pleasantly surprised. :thumbup:
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Regarding your signature, I had no idea there was a book about the art of pimping. Who would have thought? I should probably read that before third year, huh?

WellWornLad said:
"For the guys," he said, "that means a tie. For women, well, it's whatever you girls do to look professional."
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:laugh: It's nice being a girl. Not having to wear a tie is a huge bonus. I don't think I could walk around being strangled all day and still function.
 
Jwax said:
:laugh: It's nice being a girl. Not having to wear a tie is a huge bonus. I don't think I could walk around being strangled all day and still function.
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Not only that, but I think I'd be sweating profusely if I had to wear a tie, long sleeve shirt, white coat, with pants every day.

I like being able to wear a skirt with short sleeve top or dress underneath the white coat.
 
Jwax said:
Regarding your signature, I had no idea there was a book about the art of pimping. Who would have thought? I should probably read that before third year, huh?


:laugh: It's nice being a girl. Not having to wear a tie is a huge bonus. I don't think I could walk around being strangled all day and still function.
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Jolie South said:
Not only that, but I think I'd be sweating profusely if I had to wear a tie, long sleeve shirt, white coat, with pants every day.

I like being able to wear a skirt with short sleeve top or dress underneath the white coat.
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Haha. :mad: They are way loose on the girls' dress code, probably because they fear making comments which could be perceived as sexual harrassment. They make us wear these strangulation devices,long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and formal shoes, whereas the girls are perfectly fine parading about wearing mini skirts, open toed high heels/sandals, and low-cut short-sleeved "blouses."
 
Well I can speak for my experiences... in the peds hem/onc ward at the hospital I shadowed at all attendings and residents wore slacks and nice tops (sweaters, shirt and tie, etc)... some wore white coats some didn't... and many females wore skirts

In the family practice clinic I go to and have shadowed in it is also dress pants and nice tops except on Fridays which doctors and nurses can wear nice jeans with polos or casual sweater- still no tshirts.

I have never seen a doctor in jeans at the hospital I volunteer at either. The only time I have seen physicians in jeans is casual Fridays in private practice or on missions trips (though even at the mission free clinic I did in the US doctors came in slacks on a Saturday)
 
mercaptovizadeh said:
Haha. :mad: They are way loose on the girls' dress code, probably because they fear making comments which could be perceived as sexual harrassment. They make us wear these strangulation devices,long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and formal shoes, whereas the girls are perfectly fine parading about wearing mini skirts, open toed high heels/sandals, and low-cut short-sleeved "blouses."
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I was once eviscerated for making a comment along those lines. One of the biggest headaches about dressing nicely as a man is that 'professional' clothing basically comes in two cuts. Skinny. And Fat. I can either not breathe, stretch or move, or wear clothing so voluminous it can serve as emergency housing for a large family or three. And I'm not even that big.
 
Winged Scapula said:
The specialties and environments in which you can wear jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt to work would be very very few. The residencies in which you can wear such would be...uh...none.
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But J.D., Dr. Cox, & Turk always wear jeans or scrubs. :(

Jwax said:
Regarding your signature, I had no idea there was a book about the art of pimping. Who would have thought? I should probably read that before third year, huh?
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I think you should.

Pimpin' ain't easy 'cause the hoez are always short with my money! :smuggrin:

Here's a link to the article: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=628030
 
Thankfully we are not required to dress professionally. I don't think I own dress pants and can't remember the last time I wore a tie that lasted more than 15 minutes :p
 
KnuxNole said:
Thankfully we are not required to dress professionally. I don't think I own dress pants and can't remember the last time I wore a tie that lasted more than 15 minutes :p
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What year are you? I'm guessing you aren't a third year yet.
 
mercaptovizadeh said:
Haha. :mad: They are way loose on the girls' dress code, probably because they fear making comments which could be perceived as sexual harrassment. They make us wear these strangulation devices,long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and formal shoes, whereas the girls are perfectly fine parading about wearing mini skirts, open toed high heels/sandals, and low-cut short-sleeved "blouses."
Click to expand...

Well, some places its +/- the tie. A lot of people now believe it is a fomite and fear bringing infections home etc etc. Some of my attendings said ties optional, some forbade them entirely, some insisted. As a med student/resident, whatever the attending says is law.
 
Who the hell hates wearing scrubs? They're comfortable, it takes 2 seconds to get dressed, they're the cheapest clothes you can buy without going to Salvation Army, and they last forever.
 
ArkansasRanger said:
What if you hate wearing scrubs like me?
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I know some girls in my class who hate wearing scrubs. My IM attending/clerkship director said something along the lines of scrubs "not making a good fashion statement." If you hate wearing scrubs, then OR specialties and probably things like critical care and EM would be out b/c it's usually scrubs. Who wants to get blood or secretions on their fancy clothes? I personally hate wearing shirt/tie, especially the tie. As long as there's no tie I'm good. As long as I'm in scrubs, I'm great.
 
G-Man82 said:
Well, some places its +/- the tie. A lot of people now believe it is a fomite and fear bringing infections home etc etc. Some of my attendings said ties optional, some forbade them entirely, some insisted. As a med student/resident, whatever the attending says is law.
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Well, yes, but that wasn't the point. The point is that men have far less leeway in what they wear in this "professional" context than women. Perhaps its just because in general women's clothes are a lot more diverse (particularly the colors they use) than men's, but I think, in the interests of fairness, that if men have to wear collared shirts, ties, formal shoes, etc. women should have to wear formal blouses, closed-toe shoes, stockings, and skirts that go below the knee or full pants.
 
Jwax said:
Not having to wear a tie is a huge bonus. I don't think I could walk around being strangled all day and still function.
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While I hate wearing a tie as well, the "strangle" problem can be overcome two ways
1. Buying shirts w/ bigger collar sizes
2. Clip on ties :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: (added benefit of not getting literally strangled on a Psych rotations :D)
 
I only have ever considered fields where I will extensively wear scrubs
 
the more powerful you are as an attending the more you can wear whatever you want. just as an example: for surgery m&m everybody is required to dress up in shirt/tie/slacks, no scrubs allowed even if you were on call. a resident once showed up wearing scrubs with a white coat over it and a attending told him to go change. the next week this same attending himself showed up in just scrubs without even a white coat over it and nobody said a thing to him.
 
Doctors in private practice wear whatever they want (that patients will tolerate). Doctors who are employed by others wear whatever their employers tell them to wear. I do not know if doctors with admitting privileges are required to follow hospital dress codes. My guess is they don't.

Residency programs vary. Search online for policy manuals. Some are strict; some are pretty casual.

It's hard for men to go wrong with slacks and dress shirts. It's easy to add a tie if necessary, but in many places, ties are optional.

Women tend to be able to get away with a lot -- but not because of clothing diversity. There are unisex styles I've seen women wear that men would be sent home for. It's simple sexism. The worst offenders of dress-code disparity that I've seen are in places that are more "traditional". Women dress is not monitored as closely because it doesn't matter, as long as the "real" doctors dress appropriately. Women who dress down in environments where their male counterparts are not allowed to, are undermining their own authority.

The general rule everywhere should be clean and neat.
 
I'm from Australia and most doctors don't wear white coats here. How common are they in the US?
 
I'm kinda the same way. They're like bed sheets. Give me real clothes.
 
mercaptovizadeh said:
Well, yes, but that wasn't the point. The point is that men have far less leeway in what they wear in this "professional" context than women. Perhaps its just because in general women's clothes are a lot more diverse (particularly the colors they use) than men's, but I think, in the interests of fairness, that if men have to wear collared shirts, ties, formal shoes, etc. women should have to wear formal blouses, closed-toe shoes, stockings, and skirts that go below the knee or full pants.
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Agreed. I just wish short-sleeve button-downs were considered professional, especially on those really hot days. I don't think we're allowed to wear those at our school, unless we wear a white coat on top continuously to hide it, which defeats the purpose. Women can wear short-sleeve blouses and a skirt and be considered professional. It really is unfair. While we are uncomfortably sweating in our winter clothes, they are cool as cucumbers.
 
angiogenesis said:
I'm from Australia and most doctors don't wear white coats here. How common are they in the US?
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Very common, though I personally hate wearing them. I think the US is one of the few places that still favors the white coat. A lot of countries, e.g. the UK, don't allow their physicians to wear them.
 
I kind of like the old cliche doctor image; white coat, leather bag of stuff out in the car...the whole Marcus Welby image LOL.
 
not the same but def funny. A guy in my class followed the dress code for the test(no hats, hoods ect ect) by wearing newly homemade daisy dukes. anyone know a doc to where DD to the clinic. yes his stuff was uhhh sticking out.
 
G-Man82 said:
Very common, though I personally hate wearing them. I think the US is one of the few places that still favors the white coat. A lot of countries, e.g. the UK, don't allow their physicians to wear them.
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there is a local practice that i have shadowed at that wears baby blue coats to not scare the kids. it looks ok, if you know that they meant to do that. first time I saw it I thought they screwed up the wash.
 
The pediatrician I had shadowed wore shorts and a Hawaiian shirt each day. Freaking awesome.
 
My med school supports a large, poor, minority, inner-city population. They have done many surveys and have found that this population trusts doctors who dress professionally and distrusts those who do not. They expect their doctor to look like a doctor and will regard their medical opinions much more seriously.

Going into anesthesiology, I am very exicted to wear pajamas to work everyday (after my clinical base year). Scrubs have a nice cut for men. It's tough not to look good in them.

Q: What do you call an anesthesiologist in a suit?
A: Defendant
 
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