More Than Meets The Eye

A few years ago I signed up for some evening college courses at a local campus.  Arriving early for the first session for one of them, I stood in the hallway outside the locked classroom door and waited for the professor to arrive.  Before long there were several of us milling around. 

After a few minutes one of the students came over and began asking me questions about the course.  Since none of us had even met the professor yet I was a bit confused, wondering why this person thought I'd know the answers.

Ah, perhaps, I thought, I've said something witty and exceedingly intelligent that caused him to think I would be a font of useful information.  Nope.

Or, could it be he assumed I was just too ...experienced... to be a college student. Nope, not that either.

Let's go for what's behind door number three.  I had come straight from work and was wearing a business suit.  A quick scan of my fellow students revealed a sea of jeans and tennis shoes. How about that, Mom was right, people do make judgments about you based on what you wear.   

Erin Marcus, M.D. writes about that very topic in yesterday's New York Times - from a physician/patient perspective. Every day, it seems, I see a bit of midriff here, a plunging neckline there. Open-toed sandals, displaying brightly manicured toes, seem ubiquitous.

Patients and colleagues may dismiss a young doctor’s skills and knowledge or feel their concerns aren’t being taken seriously when the doctor is dressed in a manner more suitable for the gym or a night on the town. There are also hygiene considerations: open-toed shoes don’t protect against the spills that commonly occur in patient care, and long, flowing hair can potentially carry harmful bacteria.

A study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association states, "Respondents overwhelmingly favor physicians in professional attire with a white coat. Wearing professional dress (ie, a white coat with more formal attire) while providing patient care by physicians may favorably influence trust and confidence-building in the medical encounter."

So, what will you wear today?

When Young Doctors Strut Too Much of Their Stuff - New York Times

Effect of Doctor's Attire on the Trust and Confidence of Patients - Journal of American Medicine via Science Direct

Comments

[Kim]

Oh man...there go my peek-a-boo scrubs.......

[Rita]

And maybe even your Notre Dame sweatshirt Ms. Kim... Ooohh Nooo...

[fake diploma]

People do make judgments about you based on what you wear and this will never change. I recently saw an experiment. Two guys, one wearing a suit from Armani, was trying to hire at many enterprises, with a fake Oxford diploma , and the other one, dressed in a usual trousers and a shirt. They never checked the first guy,. Some of the enterprises hired him.