this dress looks like kate hudson is joining the addams family! i actually like it but it is probably too much of a statement for this type of event. this particular maxi dress is both funereal and overly ballroom-fancy, but other maxi dresses or black dresses are probably fine.
I'mma say no on maxi dresses.
While the total veto on
ballet flats stands, err on the side of shorter heels too.
It irks my tater how women don't dress conservatively enough for medicine anymore. You can be stylish while not showing off your figure (maxi dress is too much skin) or wearing tall heels which frankly are too sexy. If you couldn't wear them to clinic why the hell would you wear them to an interview?
At Mayo they round in suits. Meaning as an interviewee prancing about the hospital on tour, even being brought into patient rooms, are you dressed the way an elderly patient would expect a physician to be dressed for an interview? For clinic? For a work dinner? You're not just dressing up the part of a doctor for other doctors. You're playing the doctor you play for patients but for another doctor who is looking at you not just as they see you but as they imagine patients will see you.
Same goes for, what if prospective patients of this hospital are at the dinner before? Guess what, I've seen that MULTIPLE times at dinners. People who are not in medicine part of the dinner. Sometimes they're patient committee reps, sometimes it's the darn hospital executive in a suit.
I wore slacks and a button up blouse in a bright color. To be beautiful, I did my hair nice, wore a tad more make up than I would for clinic (still not much), whitened my teeth, a nice necklace and earrings, and a smile. I was ready to rub elbows with Dr. Mucky Muck Jr. of the old Mucky Mucks who served in WWII and didn't believe boobs (read: women) should have an MD and who wore a suit to the dinner in a fancy restaurant. I was just at ease rolling those sleeves up and eating buffalo chicken wings at the resident dive bar.
Quit trying to look too good and stylish and break the mold.
You should strive to have your appearance be as acceptable as possible to the most conservative element. Get an opinion from the oldest crustiest nastiest curmudgenly sexist doctor at your institution or hell even from a nursing home or some crotchedy patients.
You shouldn't be surprised how many PDs I saw fit that demographic perfectly. Or how many PCs did and were at the dinner.
A dress is asking for trouble anyway given weather and you have no idea really where you are headed, even if you think you do. Hell, they even changed restaurant location night of dinner, vastly different venues. I didn't see dresses often frankly, and I think a lot more girls appeared or maybe even felt overly dolled up. But if you can't feel your most confident in pants not a dress, I'm disappointed.
Also my pants have been tailored for heels.
