Mayo Dress Code

[suburbanite]

The medical students, interns, and residents I have known invariably have their white coat's pockets overflowing with paperwork, reference pocket texts, PDA, ophthalmoscope, assorted doctorly implements...

How does the average medstudent/intern carry their stuff? Fanny pack? Traditional doctor's bag? Briefcase? Backpack? What's in and what's out at the Mayo?

I personally look forward to getting a break from the white coat, and the tendency to weigh it down with ten pounds of miscellaneous stuff, the stigma of the short coat, the unlined sack-like craftsmanship.

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[azzarah]

Our white coats are designed for men. Mine look so bad on me. I wish I could wear suites.

Priests, judges, and physicians are historic and religious professions and have robes....

 

[Smurfette]

No, most people wear suits. When in the out-patient clinic (which makes up the vast majority of the Mayo Clinic) professional dress is required for attending physicians, residents, and medical students. Nurses typically wear scrubs. Even in procedure-heavy clinics like gastroenterology and urology, the physicians wear suits and just cover themselves with a clean gown when doing an endoscopy, cystoscopy, etc.

In the hospitals on rounds and in day-to-day patient care, all doctors and medical students wear suits. In places like the emergency department, the ICU's, whenever on call, obviously in the OR, most everybody wears scrubs. For infectious patients there are clean gowns at the door to the room so that you can don those before entering and discard into the dirty laundry when leaving the room (probably more hygenic than a white coat). There are white coats available all over the place and some do choose to wear those at times (perhaps after they've stained their suit with something) which you can then toss into the institutional laundry at the end of the day.

Every hospital I've rotated through has gowns outside the door for infectious patients...I was taught you're supposed to take off your white coat outside the room and don the gown before entering. Men's ties are highly infectious...few if any men I know ever get their ties cleaned, yet they wear the same ties over and over again (a recent study earlier this year found that culturing ties on hospital employees yielded many infectious bugs including MRSA and VRE). How do women at Mayo dress? Suits? Mandatory skirts/ dresses? or do they have more leeway?

I'm just curious...an earlier poster mentioned that scrub techs at Mayo are "old school" because they gown and glove everyone. Isn't this usually true? It's pretty unusual for me to be in on a surgery where everyone isn't gloved by the scrub tech unless there's too much going on at the time someone comes in--then that person may have to do it himself.

 

[efex101]

From my observation women also wear suits at Mayo.

 

[tofurious]

How does the average medstudent/intern carry their stuff? Fanny pack? Traditional doctor's bag? Briefcase? Backpack? What's in and what's out at the Mayo?

You wear scrubs and white coats when you are on call, otherwise you can carry your PDA/Pharmacopia in your inside suit pocket, wear your stethoscope around your neck, and carry your books in your briefcase (like every professional in the rest of society).

 

[Howard Roark]

From ?Mayo Clinic Model of Care?

Dr. William Mayo defined standards of conduct for the staff that are still maintained today. The wearing of business attire is recognized by our patients as a unique dress code that projects an aura of expertise and RESPECT for the patient accompanied by warmth and friendliness.

 

[efex101]

Yeah!

 

[adamj61]

I can not stand this mayo dress code right now! The religous right has attacked!

 

[adamj61]

Anyone who has actually visited the Mayo Clinic *knows* what it stands for. You only have to go there and see it and that is whay people from all over the world go there for treatment...

W.W. Mayo, the original doctor during the civil war, his sons started the first clinic...I learned this in summer orientation.

 

[Garuda]

I'm not going to Mayo, but I'm pleased to hear that they have this policy.

I don't like white coats, and I have little intention of wearing one. Once I start practicing, I'll most definitely wear a suit to work. During the 3rd and 4th years of medical school and residency, I've to find someway to get out of wearing those goofy white coats. I really hate scrubs too. I don't understand the fascination some people have for those awful outfits.

Actually to be perfectly honest with you, my Dad is the one who wears the white coats. If I start wearing them, I'm gonna feel like I've become my Dad. Nothing wrong with my Dad of course. He's an extremely successful and well liked guy. Still, nobody wants to become their Dad.

 

[Trisomy13]

is this as deep as things get here?

from the sound of it, most of the men here have little experience with wearing a suit. once you are comfortable in a suit you are not very restricted in your range of motion, and you can always take your coat off if you need to do anything strenuous. a suit is not a far leap from slacks, a shirt/tie and the white coat. dump the white coat and put on a blazer that matches your slacks.... it's a suit.

suits do look professional, which is great for instilling confidence. white coats are also a long-standing symbol of the health profession and generally command respect. both are reasonable attire for seeing patients.


and as for the comment about how suits are for business... we're in the business of making people better. don't kid yourself, Dr. Quinn.

 

[efex101]

I think that now though the white coat *can* be confusing for I see everyone wearing them. My husband was hospitalized not long ago and we had trouble making out who was who...so it has lost what it used to stand for.

 

[Howard Roark]

good point

 

[leviathan]

Ever heard of "white coat hypertension??"

Ermm....that's hypertension because of the doctor himself, the "white coat" is just a convenient reference to the doctor.

 

[Howard Roark]

i think the white coat adds to the HTN

 

[leviathan]

i think the white coat adds to the HTN

Yeah, I suppose it's possible.
The reason for the "white coat hypertension" is that the pt. is getting their BP taken, and because they want it to be low, they are anxious/stressed which of course paradoxically raises BP to give an inaccurate diagnosis of hypertension.

 

[Howard Roark]

good point

 

[Howard Roark]

BUMP

 

[Doc Ivy]

Just had major surgery at Mayo, I also happen to have done a preceptorship there last month so I can appreciate the idea from both perspectives. Personally, I like the formality of the suit-- makes the patient feel like docs are taking their work seriously. Even as a med student there, you put on the suit, you look sharp and patients start calling you doc. On the flip side, I can tell you I found it sketchy when the resident was pulling out my chest tube at 6 am in a 3 piece armani suit. Put a white coat on for hygiene sake!!! That's just gross... I guess It's all about context. Scrubs and white coats were invented for a reason, keep the fancy suit for office consultations.

 

[awdc]

I really hate scrubs too. I don't understand the fascination some people have for those awful outfits.

I always say, scrubs are the most comfortable work clothes ever invented! Whoever invented those things is a genius. To each his own, I guess.

 

[Haversian Canal]

I want to buy suit for working in mayo but with fair price here in rochester...where i'd go? (what are the average prices)

 

[Blesbok]

It's amazing how many excellent physicians come from Mayo year after year...........especially since all medical student do is shadow and residents do med students jobs etc......

come on......you're kidding me right.

there is a reason people fly from all over the world to go there.

it definately isn't because they don't learn things there.

It must be the suits, not the millions upon millions that they throw at research every year. Don't confuse yourself thinking that a great research center automatically makes it a good teaching center. I am not bashing on mayo specifically, but there is a reason that PhDs aren't good at teaching medical school.

 

[Blesbok]

I always say, scrubs are the most comfortable work clothes ever invented! Whoever invented those things is a genius. To each his own, I guess.

THe only reason I went to medical school is so that one day I can wear pajamas to work every day.


In my experience the more dressy you are, the more uncomfortable the patients are, to a point. Most patient's are more comfortable around an attending that is not too dressy and cracks jokes and makes them comfortable. The ones that try to act formal, prim, and proper and wear suits everyday do not earn patient trust as well.

In the end, you could be a dirty, stinky hippy and as long as you prove that you're a good doctor, it doesn't really matter to the patients. However, getting to that point is much easier if the patient likes you and is more willing to share.

 

[Blesbok]

Just had major surgery at Mayo, I also happen to have done a preceptorship there last month so I can appreciate the idea from both perspectives. Personally, I like the formality of the suit-- makes the patient feel like docs are taking their work seriously. Even as a med student there, you put on the suit, you look sharp and patients start calling you doc. On the flip side, I can tell you I found it sketchy when the resident was pulling out my chest tube at 6 am in a 3 piece armani suit. Put a white coat on for hygiene sake!!! That's just gross... I guess It's all about context. Scrubs and white coats were invented for a reason, keep the fancy suit for office consultations.

Patients and nurses will call you doc in a white coat too. They don't know the difference unless you explicitly tell them and even then they usually continue to call you doc.

 

[Blesbok]

You wear scrubs and white coats when you are on call, otherwise you can carry your PDA/Pharmacopia in your inside suit pocket, wear your stethoscope around your neck, and carry your books in your briefcase (like every professional in the rest of society).

You carry a briefcase into your patient's rooms?

And obviously you aren't a clinical medical student if all your are carrying is a PDA and a stethoscope.

 

[rachmoninov3]

Also, a big thing that no one has mentioned reguarding the whole professional dress thing is the patient population. Mayo = $. Mayo Scottsdale certainly isn't taking many of maricopa county's most needy.
Most patients in maricopa county medical center wouldn't care whether their doctor is dressed in scrubs, a white coat, or a suit. If anything, they'd probly think the guy in the suit would cost more!

Hey Mayo! You know what would be really cool? Make the nurses wear all white with the little hats and capes! You could easily add another $5 to each IV a nurse starts while wearing a cape!