Editor’s Choice: Dress sense

Picture of the month

Plague doctor, 1665-1666. Doctors treating patients in the "black death" epidemic of London in 17th century wore bird masks stuffed with aromatic herbs because it was believed that patients had falen ill by inhaling bad air Doctors also wore wax clothing and carried wooden sticks to push patients away if they got too close. Experts think that the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which survives today, was responsible. Now called bubonic plague, the World Health Organization last reported an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007

What should doctors wear? Inspired by last month’s London fashion week, we have decided to make March our medical dress issue. I am surprised to see that the white coat is not yet extinct. Because “doctors don’t wear white coats anymore” we have a strict rule at the BMJ not to use pictures of doctors in them. Indeed, in the United Kingdom, the white coat, once the symbol of cleanliness and modernity, is now seen as a vehicle for infection, and a dated one at that. However, it seems that this is a very British idea. We asked students around the world what they wear. All but the British describe the huge importance of the white coat.

In Burma (Myanmar) the white coat is a “life long companion.” In Nigeria it “can hide a multitude of sins—last night’s party top with official looking trousers.” In the United States the white coat ceremony in the early days of medical school asks students to “don a white coat as a pledge of commitment and rite of passage into the medical profession.” What are the rules of medical dress? How strictly are they adhered too? Tell us what you think by sending a rapid response at student.bmj.com (http://student.bmj.com/issues/09/03/life/90.php).

Does what we wear matter? Daniel Sokol and Deborah Bowman debate this question in the penultimate article of their Ethical Dilemmas series. When they first suggested writing an article about Carla the Goth medical student, they didn’t realise how greatly their own views on professional behaviour would differ. A few weeks and an email or two later and we decided that the simplest solution was for them to go head to head. Should Carla be allowed to dress as she likes? Yes says Deborah Bowman. How can the medical profession be approachable to the broad public it serves if we stamp on individuality in this way? Daniel Sokol, however, argues that just as you trust a smartly dressed pilot to fly you safely, so you trust a well turned out doctor with your care (http://student.bmj.com/issues/09/03/life/92.php and http://student.bmj.com/issues/09/03/life/93.php).

Medical dress has come a long way since the days of the ancient Greeks, when great importance was attached to sober dress, and any hint of unnecessary decoration was seen to show a poor doctor. Doctors have been harshly criticised for following the fashion of the time. Petrarca, the Italian poet, describes “their flaunting of costumes to which they have no right.” Medical dress has also encouraged mockery, with the overdressed doctor a favourite character of the European Renaissance theatre. Read how we have arrived at today’s dress (http://student.bmj.com/issues/09/03/life/94.php).

And if you’d like to have a go at editing the Student BMJ, we’re accepting applications until the end of March. You can wear what you like.

   

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