Work Attire

I'm a creature of habit. My first activity every day is to read the New York Times. Depending on my schedule, some days I read more articles than others. This week I was away at a conference and found myself with some early morning extra time before the first meeting session, so I delved into the Arts section. I began to read the first article: Women of the Philharmonic Can Play It All. Just Not in Pants. It begins:

Women can wear pants at the Oscars, the Tony Awards and state dinners. They can wear pants while graduating from the Naval Academy, figure skating at the Olympics and running for president. They can wear them at just about any workplace in America.

But when the women of the New York Philharmonic walked on stage at David Geffen Hall recently to play Mozart and Tchaikovsky, they all wore floor-length black skirts or gowns. And they’re required to: The Philharmonic, alone among the nation’s 20 largest orchestras, does not allow women to wear pants for formal evening concerts.

The article goes on to discuss some of the unique problems that this dress code presents for musicians, such as the difficulties encountered when playing large stringed instruments, and one woman who plays the English horn recounted how the folds of her long dress got caught in the keys of her instrument during a critical passage.

I found the article interesting, but as an outsider to the music world simply thought that it's another example of how the frivolous often eclipses the big issues in life. Then I came to this quote from a female violinist, “One thing is really clear: People in the orchestra want to remain dressy. It’s important that we look like we care. That is sending a message. We put so much into the preparation of our programs that, yes, we need to look good as well.” At this point the light bulb turned on and all of the dots connected for me: here is the musical equivalent of the judgmental doctors who think that all doctors must wear white coats. And then I knew that the pathologic manifestations of professionalism are not limited to medicine.

Well at least in medicine our clothing police aren't sexist, I thought. But then I remembered that it was only three years ago that Mayo Clinic dropped its pantyhose requirement for women physicians. And in a recent essay, Roshini Pinto-Powell, the Associate Dean of Student Affairs at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, writes about how professionalism forces nearly every woman interviewing for medical school or residency to follow rigid rules of dress that makes her look like a penguin. Maybe we aren't ahead of the New York Philharmonic after all.

You might think that in medicine we've overcome ageism and classism in our sartorial expectations. However, it's worth pointing out that the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins is just now dropping the requirement of short white coats for interns. In the video attached to this article about that in the Baltimore Sun, the Internal Medicine Chief Residents express their sorrow at the loss of the short coat. Really? In 2018? Yet almost everywhere medical students are still relegated to the short coat. How about we just get rid of them all given that hierarchy with its associated authority gradient in medicine makes it much less likely that a short-coated person will speak up when she sees a long-coated person about to make an error?

On a happy note, there are always positive deviants, and I want to point out two of them. In the musical world, there is Seiji Ozawa, who was the conductor of the Boston Symphony for three decades. Instead of wearing the customary white tie and tails, he boldly wore a white turtleneck and tails, a look that became his trademark. The other is Jorge Mario Bergolio. As he was about to step out onto the balcony in St. Peter's Square to be introduced to the world as Francis, he was handed the mozzetta, a short red velvet cape trimmed in ermine worn only by the pope. He declined this heirarchical symbol despite the professionalistic expectations of his peers in the College of Cardinals.

I remain convinced that we need to assess work attire using simple humanistic criteria. Your clothes should be clean, comfortable, functional, and safe. No need for white coats. No long gowns. No mozzetta. No penguin suits. And the only people that will care are those who remain blinded by professionalism.

How I chose my doctor

Four years ago after moving back to Iowa City, I needed to find a new primary care doctor. I went to the University’s website and scanned the list of general internists. There I noted a physician that I had known when she was a medical student during my prior stint at the University of Iowa twenty years earlier. She had been an amazing medical student--very bright, hardworking, conscientious, and intellectually curious. My guess was that she now was an amazing internist. I asked a few colleagues about her and the responses were consistent: a superb clinician, an internist’s internist. Exactly what I was looking for.

I scheduled a new patient visit with Dr. B. Was I ever impressed! No stone was left unturned. She didn’t treat me like a doctor (for non-medical readers, that's a good thing). She took a complete history, including asking me if I ever used IV drugs. She took a sexual history. She then performed a complete exam, including genital and rectal exams. I note this as sometimes doctors skip these parts of the H&P given the somewhat awkward situation when they know the patient (another doctor) personally. At the end of the visit, I recall telling her that the encounter should have been videotaped for use as an exemplar for students and residents. When I arrived back to my office, I sent a note to the Chair of Internal Medicine to apprise him of her superb care. He wrote me back: “Yes, Dr. B is the crown jewel of the Department of Internal Medicine.”

Now let’s leave my story for a minute and examine a new study in the BMJ from the University of Michigan on patient preference for physician attire. This is a survey of a convenience sample of 4,000 patients at 10 US academic medical centers. It included both inpatients and outpatients, and used the design of many previous studies, showing patients the same doctor dressed seven different ways (scrubs, formal with white coat, etc.). After viewing the photographs, patients were questioned as to their preference of physician based on attire, as well as asked to rate the physician in the areas of knowledge, trust, care, approachability, and comfort.

The survey is well-designed and well-executed. I’ll let you review the paper if you want to know the results, since I don’t think the results have much validity, don’t merit much discussion, and I’ve blogged about these types of studies, previously (here, here, here, and here). I’m much more interested in why such studies are conducted, the biases they may represent, whether the researchers have an underlying agenda, the utility of the results, and how these studies are pathologic manifestations of professionalism.

Back to my story. Never once, before, during or after my clinic visit with Dr B, did I for a millisecond think about how she would be or was dressed. Granted, I’m not the typical patient as I have insider knowledge regarding doctors that the average patient does not. Even still, all patients want an authentically kind, compassionate, competent doctor who listens intently, and makes access to them easy. While they may have a preference for physician attire, when placed in context (as shown in a previous study), appearance is the least important patient satisfier. When appearance is further studied, attire is the least important characteristic, with hygiene and grooming taking precedence.

To ask patients to infer characteristics such as knowledge and trust on the basis of clothing is ludicrous on its face, and an insult to the study participants. "I chose the doctor with the beautiful tie," said no patient ever. I dislike this study for the same reasons that I dislike the tactics of Disney service excellence and Press-Ganey patient satisfaction initiatives. The common theme is that you can and should manipulate patients' perceptions without changing reality. Per the Michigan study, a white coat makes the doctor look more caring, but all of us know that a jerk in a white coat is still a jerk. If the doctor sits down while talking to a patient, the patient will perceive that they stayed in their room longer. How about sitting down because it makes the patient more comfortable?

The authors argue for patient-centered care and that “attire may be an important, modifiable component of patient care.” How does this study help us to provide patient-centered care since no matter how the data were sliced there was always a sizable fraction (often nearly half) of patients that didn’t agree with the majority opinion? Does this mean we should ask each patient which of the seven attire modes they would prefer before entering the exam room?

Lastly, I don’t think this study is really about what patients think of how doctors dress. Underneath it all, it’s a study about what some doctors think about how other doctors dress. And this is the ugly side of professionalism. Imagine a study where physicians are surveyed on the attire of nurses or carpenters. I think most people would find that creepy. Don’t most of us think that judging people on the basis of how they dress is superficial and somewhat creepy? And the test of whether this is about professionalism is to remove the occupational label in the survey. If patients were told to assess the attire of other people (not doctors) what would be the study implications? If we look at attire through the lens of humanism rather than professionalism, then what matters is simply that your work clothes are clean, comfortable, functional, and safe.

My advice to the Michigan doctors is this: take good care of your patients and they will love you, white coats and all.

The skullcap feud

There's a feud brewing between two professional societies on appropriate attire in the operating room. Earlier this year, AORN (the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses) issued updated guidelines on OR attire. The guideline forbids the wearing of skullcaps because the head covering should cover the head, hair, ears, facial hair, and nape of neck when personnel enter the semi-restricted and restricted areas of the OR. This didn't sit well with some surgeons, and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) issued their own statement on OR attire earlier this month. With regards to the skullcap, they state, "the skullcap is symbolic of the surgical profession. The skullcap can be worn when close to the totality of hair is covered by it and only a limited amount of hair on the nape of the neck or a modest sideburn remains uncovered. Like OR scrubs, cloth skull caps should be cleaned and changed daily. Paper skull caps should be disposed of daily and following every dirty or contaminated case."

From AORN's perspective, the issue with skullcaps is the exposed ears and exposed hair at the base of the head, from which pathogens may contaminate the surgical field as hair and skin squames are shed. The counterargument, of course, is that there is no evidence to suggest that skullcaps have been associated with surgical site infections. And now we find ourselves in essentially the same quagmire as with white coats.

This week, AORN shot back, and they punched the good old boys right in the gonads. Says AORN, "head coverings based on symbolism and a personal attachment to historical norms have no place in the patient benefits analysis expected of guidelines developers." AORN rightly took the moral high ground and called out the ACS for using a professionalism argument to justify their stance. As I have argued before with regards to the white coat, professionalism exists to protect the profession, not the patient. So while the surgeons' argument with regards to lack of evidence has validity, the professionalism argument does not. And my thinking about the skullcap is the same as for the white coat: the biologic plausibility for causing infection should lead to a suggestion to avoid the skullcap but not a mandate. While AORN may argue that their recommendations are guidelines, the reality is that the Joint Commission enforces them as mandates.

I'm not a surgeon, but if I were, I'd give up my skullcap, just in case bacteria were falling off my earlobes. And I think these issues are much easier to resolve if we simply follow the dictum, the patient comes first in everything that we do.

While I'm on my moral high horse, and since I'm an equal opportunity critic, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out an issue with the AORN. You may have noticed that there is no link to the AORN attire guideline in this post, and that's because AORN sells their guidelines for $225. It seems to me that when any professional society has something so important to say that it is written into a guideline, they have a moral imperative to make the guideline accessible free of charge to everyone, particularly when the guideline impacts patient safety. This is but another example of the ugly side of professionalism, a decrepit concept that continues to haunt us.

Debating Bare Below the Elbows

At IDWeek in San Diego this past Saturday, I debated Neil Fishman on bare below the elbows, a topic that regular readers of this blog know is one of my favorites. I had 10 minutes to deliver the pro argument and Neil had the same for the con. You can read an unbiased account of the debate here.

So in my 10 minutes, here's what I argued:

• We have conclusive evidence that healthcare workers' clothing becomes contaminated with pathogens during the care of patients.
• There is some in vitro evidence that pathogens can be transmitted from clothing to patients.
• There is no evidence that intervening (removing white coats and neckties and having HCWs go bare below the elbows) reduces healthcare associated infections, though of course, absence of evidence is not necessarily absence of effect.
• The literature on patient preference for physician attire shows mixed results in weak studies where patients look at pictures of doctors in different attire, while studies that randomized attire show no difference in patient satisfaction, and others that add context show that attire is one of the least important characteristics that patients consider in evaluating their physician.
• On the basis of biologic plausibility, I argued that we should recommend (but not mandate) bare below the elbows.

Neil argued the following (and I've added my comments in italics):

•  We already have too many metrics to follow and we shouldn't add one more. We can't be the "fashion police." (There's no added work to implement bare below the elbows. Give HCWs permission to do it and provide some encouragement).
• Bare below the elbows is not enforceable (With no mandate there is nothing to enforce).
• Arms are just as likely to be contaminated as the sleeves of the white coat (True, but you can wash your arms between patients; in a survey of physicians that we published, nearly 20% reported that they had NEVER washed their white coats).
• 5% of the population has eczema or psoriasis, and these individuals have higher rates of staphylococcal colonization (True, but we usually don't formulate policy on the 5% exception). 
• If the white coat goes, all measures of hygiene will decline. (This is a borderline insane argument borrowed from Stephanie Dancer, that I previously blogged about here).

So what was the verdict? Before the debate, 37% of the audience supported bare below the elbows, and after the debate 42% were in support. So in 10 minutes I moved the needle 5 percentage points. Not dramatic, but I'll take it. But just imagine having this debate 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago; I suspect supporters would account for <10%.

Any intervention that involves changing behavior produces incremental results. But from firsthand experience, I know it can be done. At VCU, we recommended a bare below the elbows approach to inpatient care in 2009. It was a very soft rollout--no mandate, just a recommendation. Gonzalo Bearman, Mike Stevens and I consistently wore scrubs and others slowly joined in. It started with just three people. Last year before I left VCU, we did a 12-week prevalence survey and we were pleasantly surprised to see that 69% of inpatient encounters were via HCWs bare below the elbows. This year, it has increased to 80%. Compliance was boosted when the medical school bought their students scrubs and nylon vests (see the photo of Gonzalo with some VCU medical students). I think this is an amazing accomplishment, and I will venture a guess that 10 years from now, the vast majority of doctors in the US will look just like those in that picture.

Is the white coat needed for identification?

If you haven't read Phil Lederer's piece on the white coat at the Conversation, I recommend that you do so. It is very well written and has stimulated a lot of discussion. One of the take-aways for me is that even among many of those who believe we should ditch the white coat, the one argument that gives them pause is the role of the white coat as a means of identification. This is particularly an issue for women and racial minorities, groups that have been historically underrepresented in medicine.

I have two problems with the argument that the white coat is needed for identification. First, unlike the situation in the 1960s, white coats are no longer exclusively worn by physicians. Members of practically every occupational group in the hospital (with the typical exception of students) may wear a long white coat. It's worn by chaplains, administrative assistants, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, you name it. The white coat no longer signifies that the wearer is a doctor. And we have more specific means of identification. Many hospitals now have large occupation-label tags attached to photo IDs (mine is shown), which should be more effective than the type of coat worn.

The second issue I'll articulate is controversial and will probably get me into trouble, but I think it's an important argument to explore. I'm really bothered when a physician says, "If I don't wear a white coat, patients think I'm a nurse." To feel insulted that someone might think you are a nurse implies what you really think about nurses--that they are beneath you. Would an internist (male or female) feel disrespected if someone thought he/she were a neurosurgeon or the chair of the department? I doubt it. And I've mentioned previously that I've been mistaken for a nurse or respiratory therapist many times when I'm wearing scrubs in the hospital, though less so now that I wear my name tag on my scrub shirt (I used to wear my name tag on my waist band but that's not allowed at Iowa). I don't find being misidentified insulting in the least. I just simply answer that I don't have the keys to the medication room or that I'm probably not the best person to change the ventilator settings.

Several years ago (long before I began thinking about killing the white coat) my wife and I and several other people were at a dinner with a visiting professor. My wife made a comment during the conversation about something medical and he said, “Oh, are you a nurse?” She said quite nicely, “no, I’m an oncologist.” He replied, “I’m so sorry that I asked if you were a nurse.” And she said, “Don’t be sorry! I was a nurse. I loved being a nurse. And if tomorrow I were a nurse again, I'd be very happy.” We discussed that interaction last night. As she reflected on the white coat issue, she pointed out that she thinks it's great when a person is proud of their profession, and how the white coat for many people symbolizes that pride and their achievement of completing a very long journey. For some, it also symbolizes the enormous barriers that they have overcome. But she noted that the white coat should not be used as a symbol of who you are not.

I've come to realize that a physician feeling insulted if someone misidentifies them is yet another negative manifestation of professionalism. We as physicians have been socialized to think that we are elite, that we are at the top of the pecking order, that we are better than all the other people who work in health care. That has been given to us unfortunately by our physician colleagues and is part of our culture.

I don’t want to be (or even appear to be) insensitive. I realize that as a white man I’ll never know what it feels like to be an African American woman. But we are trying to eliminate the white coat for patient safety, which should trump all else. Remember that one of the good tenets of medical professionalism, at least historically, is that the patient comes first. Moreover, we are all called, regardless of race or gender or socioeconomic status, to respect all humans (ahh, humanism!). And to verbalize disdain at being identified as a member of another occupation, in my opinion, is classist and incredibly disrespectful.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now and let the arrow slinging begin.

We need to rethink professionalism

A new study in JAMA Pediatrics (free full text here) should make hospital epidemiologists and infection preventionists cringe. All physicians and advanced practice providers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia were sent a survey on presenteeism. Of the 929 providers surveyed, 58% responded.

The big findings were as follows:

• 95% felt that working while sick puts patients at risk
• 16% would come to work with fever 
• 30% would come to work with diarrhea
• 5% would come to work with vomiting
• 56% would come to work with acute onset of respiratory tract symptoms
• Asked several ways, >90% stated they would come to work while sick out of a sense of professional obligation

What I find most interesting about this paper is not how often sick healthcare workers come to work (though it's a big problem), but why they do so. And once again, professionalism rears its ugly head. Professionalism revolves around expectations and norms set by the profession. It seems to me that if we viewed this more through the lens of humanism rather than professionalism, we'd be better off. From a humanistic standpoint, which holds a universal rather than parochial view, all would agree that individuals who are ill with potentially contagious diseases should not come to work (doesn't matter whether you're a doctor, a teacher or a plumber). Similarly, in the white coat debate, professionalism drives the argument that physicians should wear a white coat. Humanism would dictate that attire should be practical, comfortable, safe, and personally desirable. Several years ago, Judah Goldberg wrote a great essay in Academic Medicine that I often quote and recently re-read on the conflict between humanism and professionalism. It really crystallized for me the differences between the two philosophies, which are often in conflict, and once the differences are made clear, it's easy to see the corrupting influence of professionalism. It's worth a read.

The white coat debate continues on and on and on and on...

I couldn’t resist blogging in response to Eli’s recent post regarding doctors’ attire. I guess this debate continues on with some new warriors from the University of Michigan. They plan to do a bigger, worldwide study of patient preference for physician attire. We really do need another meaningless study on this topic, don’t you think? While they’re at it, I think they should ask patients their favorite color, favorite flower, and favorite season of the year, because it would have the same impact.

I have blogged on this topic many times (see here, here, here, here, and here) and I won’t rehash all the arguments in this post. But these are the most important ones, I believe:

1. I think we need to act consistently about the role of clothing in infection control. That is, if you believe that contaminated clothing plays no role in transmission of infection, then be consistent and eliminate contact precautions. If you do believe that clothing may transmit pathogens, ditch the white coat and employ bare below the elbows or contact precautions, or some combination of the two. Or if you believe that the white coat magically resists contamination by pathogens, disclose that as well and those of us who believe in the germ theory and other scientific concepts like global warming can move on.
2. If you think that we need more data about patient preference then put the issue of physician attire into context in your survey or test your hypothesis with a clinical trial. Both types of studies have been done. And the results are clear: when placed into context, patients find physician attire to not be very important (not really surprising—most patients would rather have a kind physician who listens well and wears scrubs than a mannequin in a white coat) and when formally tested in clinical trials, attire had no impact on patient satisfaction with their care (see here and here).
3. The white coat is all about the doctor, more specifically the doctor’s ego. It’s truly about professionalism in the most negative sense of that concept (physicians judging other physicians to “protect the profession”).

In my current job as Chief Quality Officer at an academic medical center, I am able to separate my time fairly cleanly into clinical time and administrative time. When I am seeing patients, I wear scrubs, have done so for the past 6 years, and have never had a complaint. Interestingly, when my CEO sees me in scrubs, he always points to the scrubs and comments, “that’s a good look!” I also don’t consistently introduce myself as “Doctor,” particularly in situations where I am likely to follow a patient over a long period of time, and in cases where the patient’s status is tenuous and they need to be able to reach me quickly, I give them my cell phone number. Call my crazy, but this approach to patient care works well for me. When I’m working in my administrative role, I frequently wear a tie, though not always, rarely wear a sports jacket, and almost never a suit. Most physicians have enough common sense to dress appropriately for work, so very few need to be told how to dress. And I respect the fact that each of us has our own style. How you dress is a personal decision, a reflection of who you are. By the same token, there are some patients who prefer their doctor to dress more casually. There is no one size fits all.

So to our colleagues in Michigan, a challenge: in your new survey ask patients the following question: which is more important to you—that your physician be dressed in a white coat or that your physician gives you his/her cell phone number? I can’t wait to see the results.

Am I an indicator of a decline in hygiene?

A few weeks ago I was seeing patients at a clinic in an affluent suburb. My first patient of the day was a professional woman. At the end of the encounter, she said: "Can I ask you a question?" I had no idea where this was going, sensing that this was probably not going to be a medical question, but said, "of course." She then proceeded to ask me how I liked my Toms, as she wanted to buy her husband a pair. I was in my typical summer clinic attire, which consists of a polo jersey, khakis, and Toms (no socks). Now I think Toms are great--they're comfortable, not made of leather (i.e., animal friendly), and for every pair sold a pair is given away to a child in need. But this post isn't really about Toms.

The Toms question from my patient was a great segue for me to ask the patient about doctor's clothing. I asked her what she thought about how I was dressed and her expectations of how physicians should dress. She said that she saw me walk into the clinic and knew I was her doctor because she had Googled me before the visit. She noted the way I was dressed and thought I would probably put a lab coat on (by the tone of her voice I could tell she didn't like the lab coat concept). She went on to tell me that my clothes made me "a real human" and it made her more comfortable in interacting with me. I suspect that some other patients may feel differently, but I carefully follow my patient satisfaction scores and must admit that if my clothes are problematic, it's not reflected in my scores. Patients don't really care how their doctor is dressed, as long as the doctor demonstrates empathy, communicates well, and ensures that the patient has access to him/her when they have a problem.

There's an essay in this week's BMJ by Dr. Stephanie Dancer, former editor of the Journal of Hospital Infection. It's entitled, Put your ties back on: scruffy doctors damage our reputation and indicate a decline in hygiene. In her poorly argued essay, which I think is sexist and borders on crazy talk, she attempts to link the bare-below-the-elbows concept to lower standards for infection prevention. She writes:

"No tie"--along with stubble, spitting, picking your nose, and gravity defying trousers--symbolize the real status of hygiene in today's society.

In one paragraph she discounts the role of clothing in infection prevention:

Given that bed linen and pajamas are habitually contaminated with their owners' personal microbial flora, the focus on transmission from what staff are wearing seems disproportionate and perhaps even irrelevant. 

This, of course, fails to distinguish between endogenous and exogenous pathogens. A paragraph later she chastises doctors for wearing the same clothes for several days as it "showers the environment with millions of skin organisms."  However, the vast majority of clinicians who wear white coats wear the same coat for days to weeks without laundering them.

I continue to believe that bare below the elbows is useful in infection prevention as it reduces clothing contamination and makes compliance with hand hygiene easier. And I wholeheartedly believe that doctors should appear neat and clean. But I'm still trying to determine biologic plausibility for how banning neck ties has led to nose picking... Maybe it's because neckties function as handkerchiefs!

My new white coat is a cool black vest

Those of you who have followed our blog for the past few years probably know that one of my favorite topics in infection prevention is the role of clothing in transmission of pathogens. But I'm also fascinated by the sociologic aspects of clothing in medicine, which is usually framed around questions of professionalism (for example, is a doctor in a white coat more "professional" than a doctor wearing scrubs?). So I was interested to see another paper on this topic in JAMA Internal Medicine (the journal formerly known as Archives of Internal Medicine). The study was a survey of family members of ICU patients in three Canadian ICUs. Over three hundred persons viewed photographs of physicians dressed in scrubs, business suits, white coats with neckties, or blue jeans. The study subjects were then asked to match the variously dressed doctors with certain attributes. In a nutshell, they found that families deemed the doctors in white coats to be most knowledgable, most honest, and best overall. Doctors in scrubs and white coats were deemed equally most competent and most caring.

I'm always amused by these studies because I've never met a patient who chose their doctor on a sartorial basis. It would be like buying a red car because you love that color even though you know nothing else about the car and never took it for a test drive. These types of studies, in my opinion, sell patients short. Yes, all of us form rapid first opinions about those we encounter, but almost all of us are sophisticated enough to quickly move past superficial qualities to assess a person's honesty, ability to communicate, and for physicians, his/her ability to demonstrate empathy. Lastly, the entire premise of the study seems strange--while you might choose your primary care doctor, it's extremely unlikely that you will choose your intensivist. The accompanying editorial is congruent with my line of thinking and concludes that professional behavior is far more important to patients and families than professional appearance.

I stopped wearing a white coat a decade ago, but many physicians still cling to it. Some wear them for storage, which my wife (also a doctor) tells me is more important for women since their clothing has fewer pockets. Some wear white coats as a form of identification, which may have held true when doctors were the only people in the hospital wearing them. Some wear them for warmth. And some just need the ego boost.

I was an early adopter of bare below the elbows and have only worn scrubs when seeing inpatients for the last five years. Smart phones and cargo scrub pants have taken care of my storage needs. But the one downside of scrubs is feeling cold in the winter. My partners and I recently solved that problem. We found vests that are lined but are constructed of nylon on the exterior surface, which allows them to be easily wiped down. They fit snugly so they don't drape onto the patient when performing an exam. And yes, they are warm! I'd like to take credit for the idea, but actually we copied our intensivists, most of whom are also bare below the elbows.

On April 1, we embark on a new policy at my hospital that no longer requires contact precautions for patients with MRSA and VRE. As we educate our staff on the change, we're reminding them that it's ok to shed the white coat and tie. If we're not going to wrap ourselves in plastic, bare below the elbows seems even more important.

It's time to hang up the white coat

This morning’s New York Times Week in Review section has an article on the white coat and the concerns about contamination by microbes. In a previous posting, I discussed the infection control aspect of the problem with white coats, and the magical thinking held by most physicians that somehow the coat has received a dispensation from the germ theory. Perhaps as interesting as the infection control angle is the issue of the coat’s symbolism and its link to professionalism. There are several papers in the medical literature that discuss the coat’s symbolism. The positive symbolic aspects include candor, integrity, and goodness. Also, it is viewed as a symbol of purity and cleanliness, which is ironic given that two-thirds of doctors wash their coats no more frequently than every two weeks. Negative symbolism has also been described. Some view the coat as a symbol of hierarchy and authority, a marker of social and economic privilege, and a way to denote that the physician is part of an elite community somehow separated from the rest of society.

Dr. Judah Goldberg, an emergency medicine physician and ethicist, wrote a compelling paper in Academic Medicine last year, in which he compares and contrasts professionalism and humanism, and how the white coat fits into these constructs. It's a must-read for those interested in the white coat debate. He writes that one comes to understand humanism simply through the experience of life, whereas, professionalism is acquired through the socialization process of entering a profession. Humanism’s motivation is to serve the welfare of humankind. On the other hand, professionalism’s primary motive is to strengthen professional identity. Most importantly, Dr. Goldberg points out that the outcome of humanism in medicine is to link the physician to the patient. The outcome of professionalism is to separate the doctor from the patient. Thus, once the differences between humanism and professionalism are delineated, it becomes apparent that the white coat serves the latter.

Another physician, Dr. Matt Bianchi, in a paper in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, is able to distill the entire issue into a few sentences as he writes about his own experience:

“I have had the good fortune to encounter a wide and rich spectrum of opinions from patients, friends, and colleagues on the matter of proper physician attire, perhaps encouraged by my absent white coat, absent necktie, shaved head, bilateral black hoop earrings, and tattoos covering approximately 17% of my skin (according to the Lund-Browder burn chart). With only one exception (a mildly demented man in heart failure), every one of the uncommon suggestions to upgrade my appearance for the sake of patient care has come from a physician colleague. In contrast, there have been countless moments of connection with patients who confided that some aspect of my appearance made them feel more comfortable… One can only hope that each doctor-patient interaction affords the participants the chance to transcend the cursory impressions of attire and engage in the “real” work of medicine, the alleviation of suffering and the healing potential of a positive, productive relationship.”

In the end, the white coat is all about the doctor, not the patient. The New York Times article quotes a physician who says, “The coat is part of what defines me, and I couldn’t function without it.” Now that’s magical thinking at it's finest!