Doctor’s Dress Code
We have seen this story before and I believe in some of it:
- A new dress code for doctors, nurses and other health care workers calls for outfits that may be short on style, but long on what it takes to keep dangerous germs from spreading among patients.
- Short sleeves, bare hands and forearms and white coats that are laundered at least once a week — if not more often — are the keys to keeping nasty bugs such as Staphylococcus aureus from hitching a ride on a doctor’s wrist.
- Neckties are questionable. Watches and rings have to go. It’s not clear what to do about name tags, lanyards, necklaces and cell phones, but when in doubt, it’s best to clean the offending items — or get rid of them.
While this sounds all well and good it is all a matter of time before the idiots at the Joint Commission bring this to the outpatient setting where it has no business being. Unfortunately, that has not stopped them before. So, I will be wearing this to see patients in the future:
Well, that outfit might be good or bad. I’ll put some credence in this just as soon as they take the long fingernails, long hair and excessive jewelry off the nurses. And those dark colored scrubs, too. Black (which is what all the MedSurg nurses wear in my hospital) covers a multitude of sins, AND it’s not clear whether they’ve been washed recently, either.
“To be sure, no one has discovered a direct link between the germs on health worker clothing and actual infections, noted Dr. Gonzalo Bearman, a hospital epidemiologist with the Virginia Commonwealth University System and a member of the SHEA guidelines committee”
Love it! the same mindset that gave us EMRs, ACOs, PCMHs, P4P, etc, etc, etc,
How about just a comb-over?
That new outfit might narrow down your patient population a little , one might think
Are you taking new patients?
Only if you don’t laugh at my outfit
” So, I will be wearing this to see patients in the future”
… And you look so good in it, Doug.