For example, wearing striped ties to class from middle school through college might accomplish your longstanding desire to become president of the local golf club. Wear three piece pin striped suits in your law practice and clients just might begin to believe you are actually worth eight hundred dollars per hour. After all, clothes, as it is said, makes the man - and woman.
Without saying so we want people to know if we are gentle or rough, liberal or conservative, heterosexual or homosexual, playful or serious. Our clothes billboard the answers with laser accuracy.
Clothing also permits us to indulge ourselves in various fantasies. That's why we drive our Ford pick-up wearing leather racing gloves or take to coming to the office decked out in a Stetson hat.
Even the survival of the species benefits from a Darwinian fashion show of clothing. While other animals attract each other and preserve their species utilizing color markings, we depend heavily on clothing to propagate ours.
So it was a big shock to me when I commenced my internship and discovered that my wardrobe was to go in storage and be replaced by a uniform which would do very little to either preserve the species or promote the persona I hoped to cultivate.
The uniform consisted of a short white jacket, white pants and white shirt. They were all starched to a point that one had more of a feeling of breaking into them rather than putting them on. This cold, stiff, white landscape was relieved only by our neckties. While it was mandatory to wear them, we were given free rein in buying them, leading to a cacophony of colors and patterns, which gave us a modicum of individual expression.
So we held on to our neckties as if they were lifeboats. Most of us packed as much individuality as we could into our very limited haberdashery. I favored ties with interesting color combinations hoping, I suppose, to be seen as
artistic and sensitive.
But selecting my own ties did not dispel for me the feeling of anonymity and enforced conformity.
So why were we exiled to this fashion Siberia? What message was our hospital attire supposed to convey?
The relentless white was possibly to project a pure and sanitary image despite our regular tramping around in gobs of purulence.
It was widely believed at the time that germs (any bacteria, almost all friendly) were public enemy number one and television ads were awash in pitches for toilet bowl cleaners (Mr. Clean was an icon) and kitchen sanitizers. The sparkling white color of our hospital clothes must have, as a result, been very reassuring.
The stiffness of our outfits might have subconsciously suggested moral rectitude though it is equally possible that the hospital laundry got a sweet deal on starch and felt free to starch the daylights out of our uniforms. Which ever the case, my cohort and I had, by common consensus, more starch than rectitude.
So when I finally entered practice, escaping three years of a deflating dress code (and two years in the army where I came to detest the color olive nearly as much as white), I vowed to never wear anything white. This included white shirts and lab coats, long or short. It surprised me how commonplace it was for practitioners to wear long white lab coats and I was grateful that the group I joined did not.
Long white lab coats on internists seems to me like over - egging the omelet. They give the impression of a doctor who not only talks to you and takes your blood pressure, but also conducts animal studies in the basement and is regularly splashed with blood and an assortment of nasty discharges. In fact, these contingencies are pretty far-fetched.
Moreover, the lab coats suggest priestly robes, giving them an air of authority which is disturbing. While studies have shown that a majority of patients find doctors who wear the lab coats more professional and trustworthy, donning of the robes can create a divide which does not accommodate open discussion. After all, who will challenge or question a man or woman wearing priestly robes?
There are of course many internists in lab coats who encourage and successfully create open dialogues with their patients, but the coats are in many ways institutional props that, under the radar, stifle communication, and thereby deserve to be mothballed.
My second vow on entering practice was to not wear neckties. In part I saw them as superfluous and uncomfortable and in part I admit to playing the gadfly. But my chief aim was to cultivate a persona that painted me as open, flexible and somewhat unconventional. Tossing off my ties was a metaphor for these qualities.
My seniors were scandalized by my open collar look which they regarded as subversive and unprofessional. On the other hand, my patients barely noticed and I doubt that I lost any patients as a result.
Today, at least thirty-five years later, the open collar is the rage among politicians, celebrities, doctors, pundits, even lawyers.
Furthermore, the tie is now regarded as a pariah in the medical world by some researchers who have shown them to be a breeding ground for pathogens and a rich source of hospital acquired infections. Some hospitals in the UK have banned them and many others, here and abroad, discourage them.
In some ways then, clothes indeed can make the man or woman. At the very least, their presence or absence (my long gone ties) are vehicles for how we see ourselves and hope to be seen by others. Whichever style we might adopt, it should feel natural or else it flops. Otherwise, most fashion sorties hit the target as long as there is not even a hint of sloppiness.
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Clothing also permits us to indulge ourselves in various fantasies. That's why we drive our Ford pick-up wearing leather racing gloves or take to coming to the office decked out in a Stetson hat.
Even the survival of the species benefits from a Darwinian fashion show of clothing. While other animals attract each other and preserve their species utilizing color markings, we depend heavily on clothing to propagate ours.
So it was a big shock to me when I commenced my internship and discovered that my wardrobe was to go in storage and be replaced by a uniform which would do very little to either preserve the species or promote the persona I hoped to cultivate.
The uniform consisted of a short white jacket, white pants and white shirt. They were all starched to a point that one had more of a feeling of breaking into them rather than putting them on. This cold, stiff, white landscape was relieved only by our neckties. While it was mandatory to wear them, we were given free rein in buying them, leading to a cacophony of colors and patterns, which gave us a modicum of individual expression.
So we held on to our neckties as if they were lifeboats. Most of us packed as much individuality as we could into our very limited haberdashery. I favored ties with interesting color combinations hoping, I suppose, to be seen as
artistic and sensitive.
But selecting my own ties did not dispel for me the feeling of anonymity and enforced conformity.
So why were we exiled to this fashion Siberia? What message was our hospital attire supposed to convey?
The relentless white was possibly to project a pure and sanitary image despite our regular tramping around in gobs of purulence.
It was widely believed at the time that germs (any bacteria, almost all friendly) were public enemy number one and television ads were awash in pitches for toilet bowl cleaners (Mr. Clean was an icon) and kitchen sanitizers. The sparkling white color of our hospital clothes must have, as a result, been very reassuring.
The stiffness of our outfits might have subconsciously suggested moral rectitude though it is equally possible that the hospital laundry got a sweet deal on starch and felt free to starch the daylights out of our uniforms. Which ever the case, my cohort and I had, by common consensus, more starch than rectitude.
So when I finally entered practice, escaping three years of a deflating dress code (and two years in the army where I came to detest the color olive nearly as much as white), I vowed to never wear anything white. This included white shirts and lab coats, long or short. It surprised me how commonplace it was for practitioners to wear long white lab coats and I was grateful that the group I joined did not.
Long white lab coats on internists seems to me like over - egging the omelet. They give the impression of a doctor who not only talks to you and takes your blood pressure, but also conducts animal studies in the basement and is regularly splashed with blood and an assortment of nasty discharges. In fact, these contingencies are pretty far-fetched.
Moreover, the lab coats suggest priestly robes, giving them an air of authority which is disturbing. While studies have shown that a majority of patients find doctors who wear the lab coats more professional and trustworthy, donning of the robes can create a divide which does not accommodate open discussion. After all, who will challenge or question a man or woman wearing priestly robes?
There are of course many internists in lab coats who encourage and successfully create open dialogues with their patients, but the coats are in many ways institutional props that, under the radar, stifle communication, and thereby deserve to be mothballed.
My second vow on entering practice was to not wear neckties. In part I saw them as superfluous and uncomfortable and in part I admit to playing the gadfly. But my chief aim was to cultivate a persona that painted me as open, flexible and somewhat unconventional. Tossing off my ties was a metaphor for these qualities.
My seniors were scandalized by my open collar look which they regarded as subversive and unprofessional. On the other hand, my patients barely noticed and I doubt that I lost any patients as a result.
Today, at least thirty-five years later, the open collar is the rage among politicians, celebrities, doctors, pundits, even lawyers.
Furthermore, the tie is now regarded as a pariah in the medical world by some researchers who have shown them to be a breeding ground for pathogens and a rich source of hospital acquired infections. Some hospitals in the UK have banned them and many others, here and abroad, discourage them.
In some ways then, clothes indeed can make the man or woman. At the very least, their presence or absence (my long gone ties) are vehicles for how we see ourselves and hope to be seen by others. Whichever style we might adopt, it should feel natural or else it flops. Otherwise, most fashion sorties hit the target as long as there is not even a hint of sloppiness.
Perhaps the best advice I ever received about clothing was from my father who exhorted my brother and I to dress British and think Yiddish. Its pretty good advice for anyone: create an image but remember where you come from.
Dress British, think Indian; dress British, think Polish; dress British, think Mexican and so on works equally well.
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I think these comments are right on target. People want cleanliness and evidence of organization when they see a professional. Sandals, messy or dirty hair send one message while neatly pressed slacks, an ironed shirt, dress shoes and clean, combed hair send another. As for doctors needing to wear ties, I'm with you, let's put an end to that spoken or unspoken requirement!
ReplyDeletei appreciate markc's comment. The doctor dressed as he suggests would promote confidence and, at the same time, a sense of ease.
ReplyDeleteAs the relationship of patient with doctor, especially a primary care doctor, has changed from one of reverence to more of a partnership of care, it seems that not only dress needs to be rethought but all the accoutrements of the doctor and his workplace.
ReplyDelete