Who should wear the white coat?

[Bertelman]

This one is definitely more entertaining, though.

That's because communists don't believe in God.

WAAAYYYY more entertaining.

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[8744]

Six months. Just six months until I start working in the Emergency Department full time and never have to wear my white coat again!

 

[SamaraMorgan]

.

 

[fang]

While this has been discussed to death, here's a point I haven't seen anyone make:

We assume that PA's/NP's CANNOT do a physician's job as well as a physician, as though our 2 years of extra training sets us apart for a lifetime. I think a smart, motivated PAor NP with 10 years of experience in family medicine will be equivalent in terms of health outcomes to a standard MD with 10 years of experience. I've tried to look for data on this, and the few studies I found seemed to reach that conclusion.

I think we need to decrease the # of allied health professionals, and simply train more MD's. If people want to make medical decisions, introduce themselves as Dr., wear a long coat, etc, and they're qualified, they should just get an MD and do that. This "midlevel" idea may serve the needs of MD's who want to do less busywork, but the fact is that by letting a reasonably intelligent person do your busywork, you're teaching them to do your job.

I'm bothered when PA's/NP's/pharmacists/etc wear a white coat, not because of the coat itself but because I see their presence as a threat. Here are people who want to take on my role (symbolized by dressing in the stereotypical marker of my profession), and introduce themselves as I do, but without 4 years of work and massive debt.

It must be expensive to run PA programs in parallel with medical schools. We should lobby to get rid of them and add more MD student positions. There are plenty of people who are qualified for med school and would be great doctors but can't get in. Nurses who want to make medical decisions, etc, should similarly apply to med school. In that scheme, reserving a white coat and the title Dr. for the physician should not be a big deal, because the people who really want that role would have it, and the people who want other (very important but clearly separate) roles in the hospital can stick with their own culture/titles/dress. It would make the system less confusing for our patients, and I think as students we'd benefit from having more people with healthcare backgrounds joining our classes instead of becoming PA's or NP's.

 

[Northerner]

I'm an RN, and let me tell you why I have a long white lab coat.

I had limited time to shop, so I ran into a uniform store, grabbed the first coat I saw in my size that was on sale, paid for it and left.

Would I be put out if people who weren't nurses suddenly started wearing caps? No...in fact, I'd probably be laughing like crazy. Sure, it was a big deal when I got my cap 20y ago, but now I understand that symbols don't make the professional.

Total B.S.

 

[Tired]

Total B.S.

Amen.

Too bad I don't have any sub-i's left this year. I'd love to try to put that one over on the attendings.

 

[saradoor]

So it looks like instead of asking the non-physicians to stop wearing white coats, some institutions are asking their physicians to ditch the white coats.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_coat
"Some doctors in institutions such as the Mayo Clinic are instructed to wear business attire, to convey professionalism, as the clinic dislikes the message that white coats represent to the patient."

and Clueing in Customers - Why Docs Don't Wear White Coats or Polo Shirts at the Mayo Clinic [ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3380.html ]

 

[DMBmatty08]

p53, quit trying to be a House wannabe by telling everyone that they're an idiot, pretending like your opinion is the only correct one, and acting like you know everything. I think you should consider a career in psychiatry after all of the psychoanalysis you've been doing in this thread. If this is how you act toward your colleagues in person, they must detest you. Or maybe you only act this way under the protection of online anonymity. Either way, grow up.

 

[MirrorTodd]

From- http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3380.html

Such attention to visual clues extends to the most minute detail. Mayo Rochester employee Mary Ann Morris, the administrator of General Service and the Office of Patient Affairs, often tells a story about her early days with the organization. She was working in a laboratory—a job that required her to wear a white uniform and white shoes—and after a hectic morning getting her two small children to school, she arrived at work to find her supervisor staring at her shoes. The supervisor had noticed that the laces were dirty where they threaded through the eyelets of Morris's shoes and asked Morris to clean them. Offended, Morris said that she worked in a laboratory, not with patients, so why should it matter? Her boss replied that Morris had contact with patients in ways she didn't recognize—going out on the street wearing her Mayo name tag, for instance, or passing patients and their families as she walked through the halls—and that she couldn't represent Mayo Clinic with dirty shoelaces.

"Though I was initially offended, I realized over time [that] everything I do, down to my shoelaces, represents my commitment to our patients and visitors," Morris told us. "Twenty-eight years later I still use the dirty shoelace story to set the standard for the service level I aspire to for myself and my coworkers."

A dirty shoelace might seem pretty minor, given the important work of caring for the ill. But a shoelace is something a customer can see, whereas medical expertise and technical ability are not. It's a piece of evidence, a small but integral part of the story Mayo tells to its customers.

Good lord, that's anal retentive. Are those people Army trained?