- Joined
- Nov 22, 2006
- Messages
- 59
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
- Medical Student
Didn't docs just steal the white coat from lab scientists anyhow? Or am I wrong in that assumption?
Yes, they will eventually understand. But maybe the larger issue is that physicians have ceded far too much authority over patient care to non-physicians. All the points made here about other disciplines steadily encroaching on domains traditionally determined by medicine are absolutely correct. We have transitioned from a physician-led health care team, to a situation where nurses decide on discharge dates, administrators dictate care plans, PAs perform surgery, and RNs override orders.
The white coat is symptomatic of this general trend. If the long white coat really means nothing, and everyone who thinks it should be reserved for attendings is being pompous, then explain to me why students are not permitted to wear one? Why are students required to wear the short white coat in every clinical encounter?
Ask any faculty member, and they will tell you it is so that students are easily distinguished from residents and attendings. This, however, is not supposed to be an issue when nurses, social workers, and pharmacists wear one? Why, during my MS3 year, was I forced to wear a short coat while the nursing students ran around in long white coats?
The truth is that other disciplines wear the physician's coat because physicians have given up the authority of their position. Med students cannot wear it, because physicians still maintain some degree of control over their own students. However, as a discipline, medicine has become too cowardly to require other members of the "team" to show appropriate respect for doctors and their traditional uniform.
In my mind, this is tragic.
I could give a flip about authority. I don't care if everyone in the friggin' hospital wears a white coat. Do I have time to see my patient? Does the nurse take care of my patient? Can I effectively order tests, etc? Does my patient receive proper care? Is my patient still alive? That's what I will think about.
I just left an interview @ U of Maryland. Their ER is called Shock/Trauma Center. Those nuts wear PINK SCRUBS!!! I mean, "Oh what a cute little girl!" pink. Attendings, nurses, all of 'em. And they save lives. Big, bada$$ penetrating trauma, chest tubes, I can't imagine what they see. Do you think the patients give a flip? I sure don't.
Students wearing shorties is not a universal truth. There are schools in the U.S. and abroad that allow their students to wear full-length coats. I don't like my shortie, and I know it is a way to belittle my independent thinking and warn the nurses I am coming. Whatever.
Your post is littered with "authority", "commanding respect", "cowardly", etc. I imagine part of your motivation for becoming a doctor is so that you may command respect, and you will have authority over others. Good for you. I'd like to suggest that, as a body of professionals, we can lobby to control the responsibilities and practices of other health professionals. I don't think we can, or should desire to, dictate what they wear. That just reeks of insecurity and a lame attempt to maintain some distant air of superiority. Whatever revolution is happening in healthcare is too far along for us to stop, and by the way, some it is actually good.
What makes you more angry? That others are allowed to wear the long white coat like physicians, or that, despite this, you are still forced to wear a shortie? Tragic? I could probably find 100 things in healthcare that are more tragic than attire.
Now before you launch into another accusation about how I am arrogant and power-seeking, perhaps you could answer one question: Why exactly do you think nurses and other Allied Health professionals started wearing the long white coat?
I think most of us think you are grasping at straws with the correlation of starting to wear long white coats and the "usurping of physician power."
I think your experience is based on not fully grasping the situation you are seeing rather than a PE acting independently and without recourse. No hospital would ever take the back of the PE over the attending; to think otherwise is foolish on your part.
You say you don't give a flip about authority, then say you worry about proper patient care. Have you really never seen any of the examples I cited in my previous post? You've never seen a patient discharged when their physician wanted them to stay? You've never seen a nurse refuse to give a physician-ordered medication? You've never seen a PA or NP introduce themself as though they were a doctor, and proceed to practice beyond their scope?
I suppose you must work in a very special place, because I have seen this in every facility I have rotated through. And I have seen the frustration of physicians who are now forced to assume liability for decisions made against their wishes by non-physicians. You are very fortunate.
I am familiar with Shock/Trauma. My program will be sending me there for at least 4 months during my R4 year. Yes, they are badasses. Cool place, eh? Good for you if you get a spot there, probably one of the premier Trauma Centers in the country.
University of Chicago is the only school I am aware of that gives its students the long coat. And yes, like you, I could care less about the belittlement my coat earns me. You're not the only one who's been kicked in the teeth enough times so that it doesn't sting anymore. My point had nothing to do with this.
Are you intentionally missing my point? This thread and my post had nothing to do with me not wanting to wear my short white coat. It has to do with the steady erosion of the the leadership and decision-making responsibilities of physicians, with the co-opting of the physician's coat as a visible manifestation of this trend.
I don't know why you have become steadily more insulting towards me, questioning my motivations for going into medicine, and accusing me of "taking myself too seriously". This has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the appropriate role of various health care professionals on the team.
Now before you launch into another accusation about how I am arrogant and power-seeking, perhaps you could answer one question: Why exactly do you think nurses and other Allied Health professionals started wearing the long white coat?
I am a surgery resident
I have noticed the constant complaining on this forum about the current state of health care in regards to ancillary staff and their role in health care. I also notice most of it comes from medical students who do not see the system about which they complain. And no, this is not me talking down to people my junior on the totem pole. I think there is a lot to be learned by actually experiencing something rather than just reading about it or seeing it peripherally while on a rotation that doesn't really even interact with said ancillary staff.
Maybe I've been in the ivory tower too long, but I can't imagine a situation where your employee can make decisions that you, the boss, don't like yet you have no say. I'm sure the truth for most lies somewhere between the picture you paint and the environment in which I live, but there is no way I will ever work in a place where people make life-altering decisions about people under my care without my approval, and I don't fear not having a place to practice because I know there will always be institutions like the one where I am now.
You are asking if they have introduced themselves as though they were the doctor. Well, that requires a presumption on the patient's part, which is something out of our control. I don't think it is worth it for every PA/NP to introduce themselves as such, which would then require them to explain their education and team role to the patient ignorant to these distinctions. I've introduced myself in a generic fashion to patients, who then proceed to assume I am their doctor. Depending on the time I plan on spending with this patient, I may not correct them. It isn't always worth it. What matters is that I never ACT as though I am the physician.
And as for the white coat thing... I know that it is politically incorrect and nonempathetic and self-centered for physicians to resent the stealing of their "uniform" but that does not make it wrong. How would cops feel if everyone at the station, the secretaries and even the janitor, got to wear a police uniform? Should we scold them for being so hung up on a piece of clothing? And assuming you would say "yes"... do you have any idea how important the uniform is to cops in reality? Ask yourself... why is this?
My dad is a retired police officer, so I assure you I understand the importance of the badge much more than you do. I also understand it is the badge, not the uniform that carries the weight, much as the MD at the end of the name on my coat carries mine. The badge is symbolic of being an officer; my dad was a detective towards the end of his career and did not wear his blues, but he was a police officer nonetheless and people had the same respect for him.
You offer up the perfect analogy to show exactly why I don't understand the outrage with ancillary staff wearing white coats; do you respect "rent-a-cops" nearly as much as you do "real" police officers? Most people I know can tell the difference (despite being the field), despite both wearing similar uniforms and most do not hold the former in the same esteem as they do the latter. I think you guys are being paranoid...
My dad is a retired police officer, so I assure you I understand the importance of the badge much more than you do. I also understand it is the badge, not the uniform that carries the weight, much as the MD at the end of the name on my coat carries mine. The badge is symbolic of being an officer; my dad was a detective towards the end of his career and did not wear his blues, but he was a police officer nonetheless and people had the same respect for him.
You offer up the perfect analogy to show exactly why I don't understand the outrage with ancillary staff wearing white coats; do you respect "rent-a-cops" nearly as much as you do "real" police officers? Most people I know can tell the difference (despite being the field), despite both wearing similar uniforms and most do not hold the former in the same esteem as they do the latter. I think you guys are being paranoid...
I don't think the white coat makes patients think you are a doctor. When I started volunteering they didn't have a short blue vest in my size to symbolize that I didn't know jack. I had on a button down shirt nice pants and shoes, with a name badge with writting that was to small for a patient to read. I would walk up and say "Hi how are you doing?" and before I could even utter the words that I was a volunteer they said "Hi dr.?" while they tried to read my name on the badge. Alot of it is how you carry yourself or at least thats what I have found.
I guess it's good you're using the search function to bring up a really old thread.
However, white coats of any length => patient thinks you're a doctor. As a phlebotomist, I wore a disposable paper white coat and carried around a bucket of tubes and needles, and more often than not, I got called doctor by the patients.
I've also had several patients tell me that they don't see a difference between the lengths of the coats, and some have gotten annoyed when I said I couldn't write their prescriptions for them, but I'd have one of the doctors look into it.
Well, I don't know about you guys, but my white coat is less white and more yellow after 6 months on the floors!
Get over yourself