Thoughts on the white coat - then and now

[handetalc]

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I have to laugh at the people that put much stock into the white coat either way.

The white coat isn't all that it's revered to be. It's part of a uniform. If I were a lawyer, I'd be wearing a suit and tie. If I were a law student, I imagine I would be wearing a suit and tie to a mock-trial. The white coat takes the place of the jacket but the rest of the outfit is basically the same.

Why feel embarassed in wearing the thing when you have to? It's not a damned scarlet letter, it's a white article of clothing. No need to feel ashamed, it's part of the tradition.

And finally, I wear my white coat outside the school/hospital all the time. It's called "I live a mile from the school/hospital and I have my hands full of stupid little books, a stethescope, an umbrella, a granola bar, a cup of coffee, etc. on my walk to campus" and I don't really want to add to that mess by carrying my white coat as well, particularly when it has pockets that store most of those things.

I have occasionally thought of taking it off when I'm outside a clinical setting on my way home, and then I realized that I'm not a tool, I don't need to freak out about wearing a coat that no one cares about one way or another, and in all probability, putting the effort into worrying about being seeing with my white coat outside in the first place is a total waste of my time and I don't have any particular interest in joining the "white coat is so passe and garrsh" club anymore than I do one that wears it out to bars.

/rant. It's a poorly sewn piece of cotton. Don't worry about it one way or the other.

Edit - oh, and one more thing: Mayo and their requirement of wearing a suit? Ha! Then I'd have to worry about being mistaken for a pharm rep.

Glad you're so unshakably secure, sir.

But in all seriousness, you gotta admit, wearing a suit is far different from wearing a (short) white coat. You more or less remain anonymous with a suit, except people generally infer that you're well-to-do.

This may not be quite a fair comparison, but if you were a janitor living a mile away from work, would you really stroll around in your navy blue jumpsuit since it's just part of your uniform? If so, then man I'd love to have your confidence. I'll trade you my honesty.

The short white coat in the hospital can suck because of how it causes healthcare members to treat you. The short white coat outside the hospital is a bit awkward b/c it implies a sort of eliteness.

 

[Isoprop]

This thread reminded me to not judge a person by the way he or she dresses.

BTW, I hate the short white coat because it makes me look like I'm trying to sell ice cream to patients.

 

[handetalc]

handletalc I just wanted to say thanks again for making these threads. I was about to suggest you start a blog, and then I realized I was more grateful that you opened these threads up to questions from others about their own paths, rather than simply discussing yours. We are getting a really wide variety of viewpoints and opinions here and I think it has been immensely helpful.

👍

 

[pietachok]

There's a girl in a class before mine that always wears green scrubs, which y'know is maybe okay. She might have a reason for wearing gross clothing, but a few weeks ago I saw that she has a stethoscope hanging off her messenger bag. Yeah. Those really come in handy in undergrad intro to physiology.

Has it occurred to you that she might require that stethoscope for her job?

I'm a research coordinator in GI. I regularly take patient's BP, so I need one. If seeing a patient during colonoscopy, scrubs make more sense than getting bodily fluids on my own clothing. Stethoscopes can be expensive, and running back to your office (if you have one) to stash it might not be feasible.

If I had to run to a class between patients, I wouldn't bother changing unless something nasty was on me. And yes, I was working fulltime when taking my pre-med courses as a post-bacc.

Someone wearing scrubs might be doing it for her own weird sense of comfort...someone carrying a stethoscope, too, not so much.

 

[slight365]

Butchers in supermarkets get white coats, too. In fact, I was ordering the white coats for the pharmacy department where I worked and the butchers kept accidentally taking them out of the shipment. Quite funny. These white coats were not unlike these coats they give you in med school to make you think you're somebody special and privileged to be there and paying those prices.

This also reminds me of when I was at a Borders studying in the cafe. Then I hear an announcement "Dr. Abraham, your book is ready...please go to the information desk...I repeat, Dr. Abraham..." And then I see it's the old douchebag sitting at the table next to me reading about the Zone Diet. What a farking tool. It's a bookstore and you really want to get all that out there? And yes, he was a physician, and not a PhD. I knew of him.

 

[nick_carraway]

Has it occurred to you that she might require that stethoscope for her job?

I'm a research coordinator in GI. I regularly take patient's BP, so I need one. If seeing a patient during colonoscopy, scrubs make more sense than getting bodily fluids on my own clothing. Stethoscopes can be expensive, and running back to your office (if you have one) to stash it might not be feasible.

If I had to run to a class between patients, I wouldn't bother changing unless something nasty was on me. And yes, I was working fulltime when taking my pre-med courses as a post-bacc.

Someone wearing scrubs might be doing it for her own weird sense of comfort...someone carrying a stethoscope, too, not so much.

Sure, it's possible that the stethoscope is for a job. It's just interesting that nursing students are never carrying their Littmann stethoscopes on the outside of their bags.

 

[astrocreep96]

Glad you're so unshakably secure, sir.

But in all seriousness, you gotta admit, wearing a suit is far different from wearing a (short) white coat. You more or less remain anonymous with a suit, except people generally infer that you're well-to-do.

This may not be quite a fair comparison, but if you were a janitor living a mile away from work, would you really stroll around in your navy blue jumpsuit since it's just part of your uniform? If so, then man I'd love to have your confidence. I'll trade you my honesty.


The short white coat in the hospital can suck because of how it causes healthcare members to treat you. The short white coat outside the hospital is a bit awkward b/c it implies a sort of eliteness.

Well, I would consider myself far from an elitist and it's easy to break the ice with someone if they get that opinion of you. Yesterday, I was walking home in my white coat and a couple of guys jokingly asked if I had saved anyone that day (not in a way that I perceived as mocking, just friendly) - I answered no, I am the low man on the totem pole as a student and I was (un)lucky if I got some paperwork do do. Elitism is as much the attitude you present to others and I experienced plenty of it in high-school debate years ago (and hated it).

To clarify my point from my late night rant: I'm indifferent to the white coat either way. Placing so much emphasis on the symbolic meaning of the coat to the point that you're embarassed to wear it outside of the school/hospital setting suggest to me you hold as much reverence for it as the person who wants to wear it everywhere. The only difference is you want to hide it while they want to broadcast it (speaking about a generic "you"), but either way you're getting too wrapped up in the mystique of being a medical student (or in your case, a doctor).

 

[CCLCMer]

There are a few schools (Mayo, CCLCM) that give you a long white coat right away.

We do get long coats, but only to wear at CCF. All of the other Cleveland hospitals (UH, Metro, VA) require the short coats, which Case gives to us. So we have both.

Yeah, some schools do start students off with a long coat. I know this happens at some of the Florida med schools. At first thing sounded pretty cool, but I'd imagine wearing a long white coat would only add to the embarrassment after getting a pimp question wrong or screwing up your presentation on rounds.

I see residents miss pimp questions all the time. Why would it be any more embarrassing for a student in a long coat to miss a pimp question than it is for a resident in a long coat to miss one? Then again, it doesn't embarrass me to screw up presenting or miss questions. I mean, if I already knew everything, I could have applied to CCF for an attending position instead of for a medical school seat, you know?

 

[usermike8500]

The medical school student white sportcoat.. I plan on tailoring mine to give it a modern Italian fit. I think it'll look cool.

 

[dilated]

Why feel embarassed in wearing the thing when you have to? It's not a damned scarlet letter, it's a white article of clothing. No need to feel ashamed, it's part of the tradition.

Because it's incredibly annoying to wear a giant sign that says "I have no status" in the hospital. Especially when you are expected to take on the responsibilities of an intern but constantly get crap in a way the real interns do not because you have a med student coat.

 

[witness23]

they should really have like numbers and names on the back of white coats like a jersey. endorsed by big pharmas

 

[Revilla]

I would dress in a tie and shirt and I wouldn't wear a coat.

They specifically asked him to wear a white coat. In that case, you should definitely wear one.