WHy do med students wear SHORT white coats?

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BigRedPingpong

BigRedPingpong

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There must be some history behind this. Can anyone provide a link?

Rumor has it, they all used to wear long ones.
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A representative from Stanford told me that their med students get long coats....unlike at most other schools.
 
I like short coat. it does not get dirty as easily as longer coats and you have less of a chance, kneeling down and all of a sudden entrench your coat in blood on the floor!

some institutions also have interns wearing short coat. When interns get their long coat the following year, they are grateful because finally they can get more respect when they walk down to radiology to get a film read!
 
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Originally posted by BigRedPingpong
There must be some history behind this. Can anyone provide a link?

Rumor has it, they all used to wear long ones.
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another school i interviewed at bragged about how their students also get long coats. then a fourth-year who gave me a tour said that when he interviewed for a residency in philadelphia, the people there were aghast that a student was wearing such a long coat.

let's start a sticky list of school and student coat length! :laugh:
 
It started in Columbia only a couple decades ago. The doctor who started it wanted to instill an atmosphere of collegiality or "brotherhood" - if you will - among the doctors, faculty, AND medical students. The shortness, however, is to provide distinction for practical purposes on the wards (i.e.- so that doctors and patients know who's a real doctor, though the latter can't always tell the difference) and for symbolic reasons reminding the students that they're STILL students.

The symbolic reason is why I have issues with Stanford giving out long coats to the med students. At my school, they always tell us to correct patients when they call us doctor because we just aren't. We don't deserve that term yet. Giving out the long coat just invites that term. Call me nit-picky/conservative, but I just don't think students should get the long coat. It's almost like playing make-believe or being a "wannabe/gonnabe-but-not-yet".
 
Why does carter on ER wear a long coat when he was just a student in med school in the older episodes of er?
 
Originally posted by Teufelhunden
Why were Carter's only rotations surgery and EM?
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well he was originally a surgical resident then realized he wanted to be in the er right? so he switched to an EM residency. i dunno...its hollywood.
 
Originally posted by UCLAMAN
well he was originally a surgical resident then realized he wanted to be in the er right? so he switched to an EM residency. i dunno...its hollywood.
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you can just switch residencies like that?
 
we talked a bit about white coats at my school. we dont get long coats because we're not doctors. we dont want to confuse patients into thinking we know what were doing and that we have a medical degree. its bad enough that some patients automatically assume were docs cuz of our white coats. i cant imagine how much confusion gets added into the mix when everybody wears a long coat.

why would any school want its students to wear long coats? brotherhood doesnt make sense since all docs know who the students, residents, fellows, attendings are. the old schoolers still wont give students any respect. in the end, the students look like posers, with some attendings mocking or chastising them.
 
I happened to read up on history of medicine, and the tradition is started by Johns Hopkins Hospital in the early 1900s, which required the interns and residents to wear short lab coats, whereas the attending, would wear the long ones. This was a practical way to quickly spot an attending physician or a physician of senior knowledge or experience when there was a medical emergency; but has now evolved into system of rank differentiations.
 
Originally posted by zer0el
we talked a bit about white coats at my school. we dont get long coats because we're not doctors. we dont want to confuse patients into thinking we know what were doing and that we have a medical degree. its bad enough that some patients automatically assume were docs cuz of our white coats. i cant imagine how much confusion gets added into the mix when everybody wears a long coat.

why would any school want its students to wear long coats? brotherhood doesnt make sense since all docs know who the students, residents, fellows, attendings are. the old schoolers still wont give students any respect. in the end, the students look like posers, with some attendings mocking or chastising them.
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The problem is that everyone except the med. students wear long coats. I've seen long coats on everyone from nurses to radiology techs to respiratory therapists, so the point of distinguishing doctors from students has been lost. There was another post discussing this issue earlier and many whacky alternatives were brought up, but until the long white coats are restricted to physicians, it is not a meaningful way to tell anyone apart.

DALA
 
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I can't wait to wear a short coat. I work as a medical technologist and all day I wear a long white coat. It gets really annoying after a while.... caught on corners, rolled under chairs, less air circulation. Some times I feel like a white dressed Neo.
 
Carter did some long rotations in surgery and EM.
 
white coats are a joke.

the fact that med schools stick to some rigid hierarchy is laughable.

Everybody and their brother wears a long white coat. All the lab techs wear one, the MRI/CT techs wear one, the NPs wear them, the PAs wear them.

White coats dont mean anything anymore. There was a time when a long white coat meant that you were a doctor. Now wearing a long white coat just means you work in the hospital.
 
I think the little white coats just look silly. But maybe that's cause I'm a giant ;)

Sean
 
Originally posted by MacGyver
white coats are a joke.

the fact that med schools stick to some rigid hierarchy is laughable.

Everybody and their brother wears a long white coat. All the lab techs wear one, the MRI/CT techs wear one, the NPs wear them, the PAs wear them.

White coats dont mean anything anymore. There was a time when a long white coat meant that you were a doctor. Now wearing a long white coat just means you work in the hospital.
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Haha yeah i wore a long white coat (required i might add) as an undergrad in a Lab. Oh man that must kill the MS1-4's to see some punk ass undergrad struttin his stuff in a long coat when they're look all lame in their short geeky coats. :laugh:
 
Originally posted by MacGyver
Everybody and their brother wears a long white coat.
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Hell, in my hospital the PA students (who, btw, attend a community college, associate's degree PA program) wear long white coats while us MS-IIIs and MS-IVs wear short coats.

Pretty cool, huh?
 
Originally posted by Dr. Xavier
Carter did some long rotations in surgery and EM.
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As an avid fan of ER (which I have heard I will soon hate when I enter med school or at least by the time I become a physician) here is the 'scoop'....during the first two seasons Carter was a med student (3rd and 4th year) and because he was not a major 'principal' cast member (like George Clooney)...particularly the first year, he actually did 'other rotations' in which he just occasionally would wind up 'passing through the er' or not on an episode at all. After that, yeah it seems like he stayed in an ER and surgery rotation as an intern...even though it was a preliminary surgery year this seems grossly inaccurate... And yes, he did decide to switch residencies...after his intern year...but he did so not without 'repercussions' as he had to REPEAT his intern year.... poor carter. And now they have him in Africa looking frumpy and funky.... so long as they don't kill him off by some freak helicopter accident, I'm good.
 
If I recall correctly, I think Carter also offered to take that additional intern year "unpaid" because there was an issue about the hospital getting adequate funding for someone switching specialties midstream (and is it just me, or is ER getting progressively grimmer and less lighthearted? why are they so grumpy all the time now?:()
 
Do medical students have to ride the short bus to the hospital also?
 
There should be some colorcoding then maybe. Nurses wear one color, techs wear another, med students, residents, senior faculty, etc.

If the original purpose was to identify key staff in an emergency, then having something like colorcoding might be useful.

It also might be dang ugly.
 
I think it's funny that sometimes the lowest ranked people will wear the long white coats and elaborate scrubs (med techs, housekeeping staff, telephone clerks in the ER, etc) while the most senior people like the attendings or the specialists will come in looking like no one important - a suit or even scruffier scrubs. I think these things have lost their meaning and everyone is just thrown into the mix now. (No offense to anyone who is a med tech, etc.!)

I'd be very happy to wear a short coat :). People often think I am a doctor now but I have no problems saying: I am a med student. I think the short coats help to keep people humble and definitely make a huge visual impact - as in, this person is definitely a student.
 
i had interview questions about that....

why do doctors wear long white coats and if i thought that they were necessary....

would i wear a long coat? etc....

i must say those questions did throw me off guard for a moment but just came up with whatever entered my mind.... haha

but i dont think the white coats are necessary....

i mean yeah its an ID thing but its basically a status thing but if i wasnt required to wear em...i dont think that i would....

and those stanfUrd kids...:rolleyes:
 
It's more of a student vs. professional distinction, actually. All health professions students who are required to wear a coat wear the short one, and health workers who are required to wear a coat wear the long one. Nursing students, pharmacy students, med students--all of them wear the short white coat.

I wore the long coat as a clinical pharmacist, and I'm quite happy to wear the short one now. People used to expect me to know stuff and have answers when I wore the long coat. Now they're pleasantly surprised when I know anything at all. :D
 
Originally posted by Gleevec
There should be some colorcoding then maybe. Nurses wear one color, techs wear another, med students, residents, senior faculty, etc.
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Bingo! I'm a tech at our big-city trauma center. It's like Star Trek in there. I've got maroon scrubs; RNs and other nurses wear Royal (aka Smurf) blue; residents and attendings can wear ceil blue or traditional green. Short white coats on the students (although the smart ones ditch the coat and just wear the scrubs). Long coats on the staff (although they're likely to ditch them, too, unless it's time to talk to a family, in which case the costume goes back on). A student from another service who comes to the ED will stick out like a cute, helpless little beacon if they're in nice-looking street clothes under a short coat.

I used to be a volunteer, and in my short BLUE coat, people called me 'doctor.' I think the element no one has mentioned so far is that it puts patients at ease, and helps them feel they've come to the right place, if people all around them "look the part."

I'll do better research later, but I think the long white coat was traditional in Europe as far back as the 17th cenury, developed from the protective smock of the surgeon. It's part utilitarian (it kept blood off of personal clothing) and part symbolic -- 'look how compassionate and how skilled Dr. X must be, if there's this spotless expanse of white coat on him.'
 
Most of our attendings don't wear white coats, short or long. That's how the patients know that they are in charge.

I think next year I'm going to stop wearing the stupid short coat and just wear khakis, a nice oxford shirt, and a tie. I don't need the extra pockets now because all of my ectopic brains are in my PDA.

Either that or scrubs when appropriate.

I don't know if there is any rule that medical students must wear a white coat.

I bet nobody will say **** to me if I don't.
 
Panda Bear,

you are lucky if your school/hospital doesnt require the white coats.

Some schools REQUIRE med students to wear the short white coats.

i think its all BS. Med students should wear scrubs if they are in surgery, or standard suit if they are doing other rotations/electives.

There is no need to wear a white coat, especially since white coats dont mean anything anymore.
 
There is a good reason to make students stick out. They (we) don't know anything (yet) and it needs to be conveyed to people, or at least to those who are senior to us in education/experience.

My opinion is that there is a place for traditions. I will be very happy to wear a short white coat that says "medical student". I feel this is a privilege.
When I'm a resident/attending/whatever, I will gratefully accept a long coat as a symbol of my achievement.

For those who eschew the short coats when they are students, how will they feel when they are residents and some snotty know-nothing med student shows up looking just like them in a long coat?
 
I don't know if my school has a policy dictating that we must were white coats.

I know they have a policy against anyone wearing the red surgery scrubs out of the operating suites but this policy is largely ignored (except by third year medical students, techs, janitors, and anybody else with no "juice.")

One will certainly not face any disciplinary action for not wearing a white coat, especially if you dress conservatively to begin with. At the very worst an attending or Chief resident could say, "hey, I want you to wear a white coat when we round."

No problem. If he wants me to wear it on his service I will.

As for the tradition, symbolism, or status conferred by white coats, well, as somebody pointed out since everybody and his brother from the dietician to the case worker wears a white coat the symbolism of it has largely been lost.

Plus, I 've got to say, The short white coat looks kind of silly. I feel like a soda jerk. Plus it's uncomfortable in our inadequetly air-conditioned hospital during the height of our Louisiana summers.
 
I guess my school is one of the rare ones that require us medical students to wear LONG white coats. I don't feel uncomfortable wearing the long coat even though I am not a doctor yet. I actually am glad that it is this way. I hate the short coat. It looks rather dorky.
 
White coats serve one purpose as a medical student, to carry all your crap.

I used to ditch mine as soon as possible in medical school just because it was full of my stuff, was hot and just a pain.

I wore my long white coat on my ICU rotations this year, because everyone else did.

You simply have to adapt to the culture of where you are. The short white coat is something that one should be proud of wearing (or ditching). A key point to notice is that ONLY medical students wear it.

Most people don't really care.....
 
As for non-doctors and med students wearing long white coats: at every med school I've seen, the doctors (phd or MD) and med students' coats have some medical school insignia on it that is easily identifiable. Yeah, you may not be able to tell if the person has an MD from their back, but if you approach them from the front, you can easily tell if they are Tech's or not.

I don't have too much experience in wards, but I haven't seen too many people on wards besides doctors wearing white coats. The techs and so forth might wear them but they are in a different area. So the funtional purpose of finding someone on a ward who is a doctor is still easy.
 
Has Carter taken his USMLE step I boards yet?? If so, how did he do and does he know what residency he would like to go in? BTW, I thought med students have to do much more rotations than just EM and surgery. jtn.
 
Originally posted by jtn
Has Carter taken his USMLE step I boards yet?? If so, how did he do and does he know what residency he would like to go in? BTW, I thought med students have to do much more rotations than just EM and surgery. jtn.
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Isn't Carter 8 years removed from med school by now? He WAS a med student when the show first started.
 
I thought Carter was up for the 'chief resident' gig at one point?

He matched like 5 years ago, too, so that's one mother of a tough program. :)
 
My dad told me a story from his internship days: a certain chief of surgery was known for eccentric displays which were designed to torture his residents. Keep in mind that this was back in the days when interns wore short coats and residents and attendings wore long coats. Anyway, one day during rounds, the chief of surgery asked one of his residents a question. Apparently the resident's answer didn't satisfy the chief, for he grabbed the nearest pair of scissors and cut the bottom of the resident's coat clean off.
 
i'm just wondering, if a med school requires you to wear the coat, short or long, what happens if when you go see a patient and they puke all over you. do u need to get special permission to take off the coat? or can you just take it off and explain to everyone that it's been puked on?
 
Like other people mentioned, it's a comraderie thing with the long coats. Medical students are viewed by the faculty as "colleagues," not inferiors. Just as they teach us about medicine, we teach them things about our perspectives, our thoughts, our beliefs. It's a two way street.

Students in the clinics always wear their IDs, which clearly states that they're a medical student, and they always introduce themselves as such, too. I'd question the notion that students don't know anything when they're in clinics. You will have had two years of preclinical experience, and I've already talked to several clinical students at student rounds who have caught things that residents and physicians didn't. Medical students generally have more time to talk with patients, and really get to know more about them, which can lead patients to talk more about their problems and symptoms, and sometimes, lead the med student to the diagnosis. And by the time you're a 4th year, you've got a year of clinical under your belt. Nowhere near enough, obviously, but you're far from clueless.
 
Anyone else pissed at how they handled Romano's death. Ok, it was rivating when he was killed, but I kept expecting them to find his body or at least his gold stethescope burned but still recongnizable. And then the next episode just skimmed over his death and made it a joke.

Granted his character wasn't liked but he was always recognized for being a brillant surgeon, so why did no one come to his memorial service. I was really disappointed in the writers.

As to the white coat issue. I can't wait to get mine. I love things with pockets so I don't have to carry a purse!!!!!!!:D :D :D
 
When I worked at LAC/USC hospital, I noticed that all the med students from USC were wearing short coats, but all the residents and attendings just wore scrubs, and wore the long coats occassionally.

I was in the Peds ER most of the time, and if you're a blond gal, you could be the attending and all the patients will call you nurse. They will refuse to accept that you could possibly be a doc. And if you are a male nurse (murse?), everyone keeps calling you a doctor. Also, Asians get that too... I'm in my early 20's and did not wear scrubs nor a coat and everyone was tugging at my sleeve calling, "doctor, doctor..." It was very amusing. I always thought those coats were useless. Everyone had such dirty coats in varying shades of grey!
 
At UT-Southwestern students wear long coats. Not real long, but mid-thigh length. We are differentiated by ID badges. Horizontal badges for students, vertical badges for everyone else.
 
At the hospital I work at (Central DuPage Hospital in Chicago), the physicians wear long blue lab coats, a few departments (cardiology, ICU, etc.. wear long white lab coats as well), the pharmacists, technicians, lab staff, speech therapists, etc. and other clinical type staff wear long white lab coats. The PA's wear long gray lab coats, and that just about breaks it down, so it is confusing sometimes, but the light blue lab coats definitely identify the doctors. It is different I guess, but it keeps the physicans distinct.

Peace
 
As a side note,

We don't have a university affiliation, so we don't have med students at the hospital (M1-M4) Still a good size hospital (365 beds) Level II trauma center, Level III Perinatal care, etc...

Kawika
 
The reason why med students wear short white coats is because it allows patients to know who is a med student and who is a doc. If they see a short white coat coming their way, they can high tail it out of there.

Jetson
 
I personally cannot wait for our end-of-fourth-year short coat burning fiesta. These things really do look so stupid.
 
Originally posted by Jet915
The reason why med students wear short white coats is because it allows patients to know who is a med student and who is a doc. If they see a short white coat coming their way, they can high tail it out of there.

Jetson
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just you jet...just you...

i mean seriously...what knowledgable patient in their right mind would stick around when they see you walking their way man haha. i mean outside of the ones that get paid for you to check them up in doctoring skills session haha.
 
I heard that at UF they don't get a white coat ceremony until their 3rd year, wassup with that?
 
students wear short coats so nurses can figure out who they can ask to do scut works!!
 
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