Scrubs, White Coats, and TMI

This just in from the BBC News service ... Doctors 'should wear white coats'.

"Most patients want doctors to wear white coats - but medics do not share their enthusiasm, a survey suggests." Patients like them because it makes doctors easier to spot. But only one in eight of the doctors surveyed at Royal Free Hospital in London actually wore a white coat, preferring to wear scrubs instead. "Seven out of 10 doctors felt the coats spread infection while six out of 10 found them too hot and uncomfortable." "There is also the phenomenon of white coat hypertension where a patient's blood pressure can go soaring when they spot a doctor wearing a white coat," said one doctor.

Now I can understand the hypertension thing. I mean who hasn't gone into a tricky vendor, customer, or executive meeting to find your counterpart wearing his/her very best power suit? If that doesn't raise your blood pressure, nothing does! Clothes really DO make a difference.

I suppose I also understand the 'hot and uncomfortable' thing, too. Bulky coats as opposed to way-comfortable scrubs? No contest.

But a full 60% of the doctors surveyed said that their white lab coats attributed to the 'spread of infection'? What's THAT about?

Well, it turns out, that it's about laundry. Turns out that doctors feel it's easier to wash their scrubs than it is to wash their white coats, so ... And get this ... They don't wash their white coats as often! Yikes, that's what I call TMI - Too Much Information. Better they'd just come clean (if you pardon the pun) and say what they know to be true: Doctors think it's cool to look like they work in the ER.

There's nothing really wrong with that, in my opinion.