Posted by Amanda Marcotte November 21, 2006 in Medicine, Fashion
All I’m going to say on this article in the NY Times—with its picture of “inappropriately” dressed female doctors, many of whom seem to be dressed in the oh-so-scary V-neck shirt—-is this:
Not that nurses actually dress this way, of course, but the cultural contextualizing of the abstract idea of a sexy female medical worker certainly does vary according to pay scale and professional authority.
67 Responses to “We need more disapproving lip-pursing—someone fetch Ann Althouse!”
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What medical resident is wearing fuck me pumps to work? Show me the medical worker stupid enough to do that more than once and I’ll show you someone who will be washing out of the doctor business fairly soon.
Fuck me pumps are pretty impractical for any job that requires standing up or walking or doing anything. Open toed shoes- closed toes would be better. It doesn’t matter about the low cut tops, because they aren’t uncomfortable or possibly dangerous.
The article was obnoxiously tsktsky, but he does seem to have a point about open-toed shoes. How big a problem is, I don’t know, but I mean, in high school we weren’t allowed to set foot in lab with open-toed shoes
Quick anecdote — my first day as a union organizer for a nurses’ union a number of years ago, I attended an organizing committee meeting of the nurses at a nearby hospital who had just filed for an NLRB election (they won — they’re on their 3rd contract, IIRC). Part of the meeting agenda was to brainstorm things the nurses wanted to win in the first contract (this is just to get workers focused on why they’re engaging in the fight — not really to start developing proposals). We were expecting people to mention better staffing, or an end to “pulling” nurses to unfamiliar units, or fairness in disciplines. The first person who spoke up was a younger, female nurse who was very sharp and a leader on her floor, who said, “Pink thong underwear!” She went on to explain that some of her colleagues wore pink thong underwear under their scrubs, and it was clearly visible and completely unprofessional and really pissed her off.
I think it went up on the dry-erase as “professionalism.”
Rebecca Traister:
Exactly. And are these candid shots of actual medical personnel, or deliberately posed models? I’m thinking it’s the latter. We can’t win for losing. You are either adequately sexbot-ish, hence, unprofessional. Or you are appropriately professional in appearance, hence, not living up to your duty to be a man-pleasing sexbot and consigned to a life of dreary loneliness.
Short skirt and a loooooong jacket!
And this is somehow worse than leering and halitosis and bad handwriting????
Under a lab coat? Lab coats hide racy clothing, but they don’t shield the patients from bad breath or poor prescription writing.
Yes, there should be both training in proper attire, professionalism, and personal hygeine for medical students - for BOTH genders! But focussing on female clothing is focussing more on the simple fact that women are nearly as numerous in medical school as men, not that they are sloppier or more fashion oriented.
“The article was obnoxiously tsktsky, but he does seem to have a point about open-toed shoes. How big a problem is, I don’t know, but I mean, in high school we weren’t allowed to set foot in lab with open-toed shoes”
Yes, which is why it’s kind of bizarre that it’s included in an article about (a) female doctors wearing (b) sexy clothing. Wearing sandals inappropriately is hardly unique to women — in my excessively male field (software) it’s more or less a running joke for employees to wear sandals — and they can’t be the only ones doing it.
Furthermore, although I guess you could call sandals revealing, they’re not revealing in the same way as a low-cut top. To most people, at least.
My ex-lover is a doctor.
She only wears fuck-me pumps when she actually wants to be fucked, which isn’t at work.
Who wears open toed shoes to chase a gurney dripping biological hazards across a slippery floor? No one. So this is an article about women being doctors that points out that they wear women’s clothing to work.
Okay, maybe I’m a freak, but unless my doctor walked in wearing something really, really outlandish, or unusual, I probably wouldn’t notice what she - or he - was dressed like, and even if I do pay it any attention, it’s going to be less important than their behavior. Cause the way the doctor treats me (and here I mean interpersonal skills, not medical treatment) is going to give me a much better idea of her/his competence than whether I see an “unprofessional” amount of skin.
Ditto Caja’s point. Unless the doctor in question is wearing so little that I can’t tell s/he’s wearing anything under that lab coat, it doesn’t make an impression. Whether or not s/he makes eye contact sometime in the first few minutes, on the other hand, does, and is far more telling about the sort of professional s/he is. (and it’s scary how many docs fail this simple point)
Did someone say disapproving lip pursing?
For fucks’ sake, why everyone doesn’t see that Caja and LS have said all that needs to be said on the matter is beyond me.
I’ve had a lot of exposure to medical professionals over the past few years, and only two stood out in relation to the article.
One was a doctor who wore a very short dress; miniskirt length. However, considering the seriousness of what we had to discuss, and her unquestionable qualifications, it was really incredibly unimportant. I’m a normal guy - that is to say, a perv - so of course I noticed her short skirt and nice legs. But it didn’t interfere in the least bit with the professional relationship. Why? Because she was uniquely qualified, made good eye contact, was very professional, and in comparison to the matters we were discussing, a short minidress is, well, something only a seriously demented person would think much about (beyond, of course, “nice legs for 43!”).
Second, a medical nurse/technician who had some very beautiful tattoos of birds on her upper chest, and some stuff I don’t remember on her knuckles. The reason I don’t remember what was on her knuckles (stars, maybe), was that she was professional, qualified, really, really nice, had great bedside manner, etc.
When Ivy League students commonly have tattoos, can we finally end this stupid pretense that a guy with an earring or someone with a tattoo or an unusual haircut or personal style in dress is some kind of leper? GROW UP and stop obsessing about other people’s appearance as if we all had some unspoken obligation to dress like the Osmond family. We don’t. Sorry you don’t like it - you can still move to Utah, there’s still time.
I understand that if you work in bank, people want you to look like a rich money-grubbing motherfucker. And in the law, a suit is hard to avoid as well. As in upper management practically anywhere. But outside of these contexts - just get a life, m’kay?
I’ve also seen doctors with Tourette’s - should we ostracize them as well? I mean, it’s all WEIRD and stuff.
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ENDS WHEN YOU ARE ABOUT 14. If you continue it for the rest of your life, you have a bizaare, consciously chosen mental defect and I will mock you for it.
I had a subscription to Salon, waaaaay back in the second ice-age, 1999, I think, and I let it lapse after 2000. That link reminded me of why.
After the second page of “You just don’t understand PROFESSIONALISM” and “Men just can’t help being aroused, so into the burqua, slut” I wanted to choke someone.
Here’s a thought, people respond to white doctors better than black ones, how about we start mandating whiteface? Look, it’s all about the patient, right?
Assholes.
Now, red would be ok, but pink? Totally unacceptable.
I don’t know what kind of footwear my doctors wear. I guess it’s not remarkable enough to for me to notice. I have seen people working in biolevel 2 labs and with hydroflouric acid in open shoes. Given this kind of stupidity, it wouldn’t shock me at all to see a doctor chasing a gurney in open shoes.
A lot of the women in my residency program would take the opportunity to dress really nicely on days when they had light loads and weren’t on call. Since they were working 80 hours a week (and studying another 30-40, ideally) in scrubs and a pony tail, I think they wanted to wear something that said “attractive young woman” more loudly than it said “doctor” every now and then. Residents have to find ways to feel human.
Female physicians have to put up with a lot. Ask any one of them how many times a day she gets called “nurse”, no matter how professionally she dresses. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard male docs from the old school rant about how women have “ruined” medicine, since doctors don’t have to be 90-hour-a-week workaholics anymore and they’re often allowed to devote time and energy to their families. Now they get crap for dressing like women?
As for me, I don’t wear a white coat anymore, I don’t wear ties (they spread infections and get in my way when I do procedures), and I don’t necessarily shave every day (since my beard doesn’t grow very fast and it irritates my skin). I’m also short, overweight, and I have what has been described as “seventies hair”, so I’m about as far as you can get from the stereotypical doctor. I don’t know that I’ve lost any patients because of it, but my day is plenty full. Anyone who wants a doctor who looks like Marcus Welby is going to be disappointed, because most of us don’t these days.
And no, of course doctors don’t wear fuck-me pumps. Those are for the drug reps.
I disagree with y’all. Cleavage and miniskirts (and t-shirts and jeans, for that matter) are inappropriate attire for a doctor. It’s not about “wearing women’s clothes to work,” it’s about looking professional.
How big a problem is, I don’t know, but I mean, in high school we weren’t allowed to set foot in lab with open-toed shoes
I remember having a very good chemistry teacher in high school (the combined gas law anyone? It’s P1V1/T1 = P2V2/T2) and he didn’t get upset about sandals in the lab. I’m sure I would remember if he had, because I loved him and would’ve bent over backwards for him, but my favorite shoes at that time were a pair of Birkenstock sandals. I wore ‘em everywhere.
Now, maybe you can make a case that we should’ve been required to wear shoes in the lab. But at least in this essay, I think this issue is just a red herring that distracts from the real point. The article isn’t about lab safety. It’s about women who dress “inappropriately.”
Hamletta, the question I have about looking professional is, who decided what looks professional and what doesn’t? And is it necessarily the last word on the subject? “Low cut shirts” is even a grey area — how low is too low? Everyone is going to have their own opinion. The question in my mind isn’t so much, “How is it now?” but rather “How should it be?” (Of course, we may never agree on this, but discussion is fun anyway.)
My problem is tha ‘cleavage’ and ‘miniskirts’ are very vaguely defined.What one person might find inappropriate another might be perfectly okay with.
I have an ample bosom. Even when I wear turtlenecks, it’s kind of hard to avoid noticing that I have breasts. When I wear v-neck or scoop-neck tops, I end up showing some cleavage. Often times the v-neck and scoop-neck stuff is flattering and comfortable. And I have trouble finding tailored blouses and tops that fit, because I have a relatively small waist compared to my chest, and if it fits over the boobs, it’s huge everywhere else, but if it fits everywhere else, I can’t do up the damn buttons across my chest. I tend to wear a lot of dressy cotteon jersey t-shirts and sweaters, because jersey has a lot more ‘give’ in it than most fabrics. In other words, it’ll stretch to fit thbe boobs without being too tight, but it fits nicely in the abdomen. And a lot of those tiypes of tops do not come up to the neck. So do I stay away from any top that doesn’t come up to my neck (severely limiting my buying choices), or do I wear what I think looks nice? I’ve never gotten hassled in an office environment for wearing ‘inappropriate’ clothing. It’d be difficult to make absolutely certain other people don’t notice my chest unless I’m prepared to wear some billowing tent that’s far too big and makes me look pregnant. Mostly I assume other people are not crazy, and won’t turn into ravening monsters because they see some cleavage. It works fairly well.
The issue os of open-toed sandals and long hair not being tied back are entirely appropriate for the author of the original article to be worried about. If I were her, I’d be much more concerned with the safety and hygiene issues posed by open-toed shoes and long hair flowing everywhere.
Mind you, I used to work in a hospital, and I’ve never seen a female medical worker, doctor, nurse, whatever, wearing what I would consider inappropriate, for safety rasons or other reasons. They generally wear comfy, casual clothes, possibly because they work long-ass shifts and are a little too busy to be wearing clothes they’d have to keep worrying about getting mussed. I mean, maybe things are different in Miami, but I really don’t think this is a systemic problem sweeping the world.
So it’s all about the looks, hey? Like several people above, I don’t give a fuck if my doctor LOOKS professional, I want him/her to BE professional. If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re in front of a doctor who might very well give you unpleasant news, you don’t give a damn if s/he’s naked with a feather up his/her arse. I want a doctor who treats me with respect (which is not always the case, most notably with older, “professional-looking” practitioners) and, most of all, knows how to treat my ailments.
Does having green hair or wearing a mini-skirt preclude that? No. In this case, the problem seems to be that some people still can’t reconcile their concept of a capable professional with their view of women as sex objects. And I’m sure the very same people would be the one who object to medical staff wearing the traditional Muslim veil…
FWIW, it’s not just female doctors who get the look-professional schtick. In the late 70’s, they made my dad cut his hair (which was a bit longer than shoulder-length) before he was allowed on the floor as a medical resident.
Which is why it’s so mystifying and infuriating that this article focuses only on women. Ask any male doctor who would prefer to deviate from the accepted masculine norms in terms of personal grooming and clothing choices and they’ll tell you that it’s frowned upon if not disallowed. The article is therefore sexist and assholeish.
Yes, the article definitely has a sexist bend. Just take a look at the pictures illustrating it: Not a jeans-wearing or unshaven man in sight, just “exposed” (the horror) female body parts. BTW, if some people find these images shocking, they mustn’t go out very often. You see a navel, a pair of knees. One of the V-neck shirts illustrated is FAR from plunging. What’s the big deal?
I’m wondering what planet I live on. After working in a busy teaching hospital for five years, I’ve yet to see any of the clothing crimes mentioned in the article committed more than once. Yeah, occasionally you’ll get a resident–male or female–who won’t tie their hair back (once) or a female resident who’ll wear high heels (once), but for the most part, they wear scrubs.
Scrubs. And clogs.
Damn those sexy, sexy scrubs and clogs! How on earth can we be expected to take a resident seriously in scrubs and clogs? *pursing lips*
If this is a problem at all, I can only think that’s it’s a really, really miniscule one. Why did doctors’ clothing rate print space in the NYT?
If a woman is at all chesty– something most women who are chesty cannot help– she gets considered unprofessional for wearing shirts that wouldn’t be frowned on on anyone else. The disapproval is not so much of the clothing, in fact, as the tits underneath. Like the brouhaha over Jessica having the nerve to put photographs of herself in a t-shirt of her blog logo on her blog, or meet Clinton without reduction surgery first.
I don’t know if this goes with body type, but I find I’m a lot less tolerant of heat/more tolerant of cold than smaller women, and so I want my shirts to be a little bit open at the neck. Even more so, I imagine, if I was on my feet all day, pacing the corridors of a hospital.
I want my doctor to NOT be too hot, too cold, too restricted, or anything else that makes him or her too physically uncomfortable to give their full attention to their job!
Jo, scrubs are all too often designed for men. Which means that what looks good (or occasionally hairy) on a guy will look like a breast explosion on me. Especially since larger sizes means larger cleavage.
My problem is tha ‘cleavage’ and ‘miniskirts’ are very vaguely defined.What one person might find inappropriate another might be perfectly okay with.
Raincity’s point cannot be emphasized enough. In my experience, when someone is criticizing a vague piece of clothing, particularly shirts that show “cleavage”, they are not criticizing the clothes so much as the body. I’m flat-chested and I can wear necklines that are considered plunging on anyone else and no one raises an eyebrow. I skip a bra or wear bras so thin they may as well not be there and no one ever notices.
When Ann Althouse went after Jessica’s boobage, Jessica was wearing a very modest sweater. Ann just didn’t like that Jessica was young or that she smiles big or that she’s got dark hair. And she just randomly thought, “Boobs! You can always accuse someone of not covering their boobs enough!”
I think this is one of those totally made-up problems, in that the guy has been ogling his female residents and wants to make himself feel better about it. It’s way too easy to be like, “she was wearing a miniskirt! Unprofessional!” regardless of the actual length of the skirt. I doubt very much that most young women doctors are wearing clubbing clothes to the hospital.
Which isn’t to say that I think it would be inappropriate for a hospital or doctor’s office to have a dress code for its doctors as well as for other personnel. It’s just that I doubt very much that it’s really particularly needed. My experience in working with clients is that I (and other women in similar jobs) tend to dress conservatively automatically, because otherwise people make my life harder. I don’t, contrary to the article’s author’s apparent assumption, need a skeezy older man to suggest that I cover up.
If you have really big breasts, you can have cleavage wearing modest scrub tops.
That said, in clinic (as opposed to the lab or surgery), you can pretty much wear whatever and it doesn’t matter to the care of the patient. As long as your patients are comfortable with you, it doesn’t matter. There aren’t enough doctors and any MD who is at all good is going to have a full schedule every day. Looks don’t matter.
I’m a nurse and I work a couple of jobs and I’ve worked in several areas. Some of the most professional looking people are the worst MDS.
In my government-operated chemistry lab, we have a few rules on clothing.
1. No open-toed shoes. If you spill something, you’re likely to have it fall on your feet.
2. No short skirts or shorts. Again with the feet. You’ve got to be wearing something to protect you where the lab coat doesn’t fall.
3. No contacts, because if there’s a chemical spill in your eyes, the contacts will seal in the chemical and make it harder, if not impossible to get the contacts out and to rinse the chemical out.
That’s it. Nothing about cleavage, nothing about modesty, nothing. People wear jeans and t-shirts all the time to my work, because they can, it’s California so no one cares, and they’ve got a lab coat on most of the time, so no one’s going to see.
I see safety issues for some of what she’s saying. But for the rest of it? Bah, humbug.
It is. It’s credited as an illustration, not a photo, meaning that the photog apparently couldn’t even find a doctor Gone Wild enough to flash her boobs at him, so he put some woman in a miniskirt and bare midriff and covered it all up with a lab coat.
I work with medical professionals every day, and I can tell you that I couldn’t care less what they have on. It’s nice to have a doctor in a white coat if only to differentiate him/her from the nursing staff, and it’s better if they’ve bathed recently, have decent breath, and (if I’m being examined) warm up the stethoscope before putting it next to skin. But what I really notice during a checkup is whether the doctor is listening to me and taking his/her time with me, and whether or not s/he is making whatever’s ailing me feel better. If she’s doing it in Moo Moo Cow pajamas and flip-flops, then she’s just a miracle worker in her PJs.
“Image is everything” continues to be the byword according to the NYT, and the press in general. That whole image thing, style over substance, is how they sold us Worst President Ever. Currently up for sale St McCain, bombing Iran, and Doctors who have the unmitigated gall to have bosoms that protrude. Who are these people and why does anyone pay attention to anything they say?
That’s what I was thinking. I’m sure there are days when my doctors are knee-deep in bodily fluids, but on the days when I see them, they’re meeting with patients in their offices, and I don’t see a lot of opportunities for spills. And if bacteria-bearing long hair is a potential problem, then I’m not sure why I’m allowed to expose all the sickies in the waiting room to whatever vermin is crawling around in my unrestrained tresses. If women’s hair is so filthy and bacteria-laden, why not require all of us to shave it off before we set foot in a medical office? So yeah, I’m not entirely buying the hygiene argument. And I don’t think the NY Times would have published an article about how doctors’ clothing choices were threatening hygiene, unless it contained the slut shaming stuff. “Young women these days dress like sluts” is what makes this story interesting.
I don’t think this is a huge problem, either–it seems like doctors, if they’re paying attention, are going to know what makes their patients more or less comfortable, and they’ll act appropriately. However, I have a problem with one of Rebecca Traister’s lines (and possibly her thesis):
“Is what we’re really fighting for here more ugly doctors? Or just less aggressively female ones?”
I’m annoyed by the implication that miniskirt=female, or cleavage=female. This line would have been a lot less annoying if she had substituted “feminine” for “female” but I still would have had a problem; it still reduces female doctors to their patriarchy-approved roles, as objects. It implies that being female is about visually obvious secondary sexual characteristics, rather than any other characteristic of women, like problem solving skills. Why is cleavage considered “aggressively female” but a correct tricky diagnosis isn’t?
I don’t need to see my doctor’s bare thighs to know she’s female. People who argue that scrubs or other types of clothing obscure their female-ness seem to be arguing the corollary that an essential component of female-ness is putting yourself on display. If a doctor just happens to pull out a relatively low-cut shirt that day, fine, but who here doesn’t think that those clothing choices are conscious and considered?I think the problem is that women feel pressure to display themselves, be constantly aware of how they appear, and dress so everyone knows they’re sexual beings/objects, even when they’ve proven themselves to be competent, intelligent people (doctors), whose sexual characteristics are irrelevant to their profession (beyond personal experience with owning a uterus or whatever).
Canada is in the midst of a doctor shortage. In my city alone it has been estimated that 20,000 residents are without a physician. So, quite frankly, we’d welcome these supposed doctors that don’t dress professionally because we NEED MORE FRIGGIN’ DOCTORS. Sheez.
What a bunch of crap. I know several women who are doctors or nurses and I haven’t ever seen them wear anything that could be described as sexy (to work that is), and they are sexy women, IMO. I haven’t ever seen them wear anything but scrubs and tennis shoes.
Of all the problems in healthcare, this is the main one the average patient has to worry about? After some thirty years in healthcare, this piece absolutely takes the cake as to being the ultimate fluff article.
For more worrisome things, why didn’t the author bring up the 600,000 unnecessary deaths and injuries caused each year by untrained, undertrained or unqualified health employees?
Oh yeah, there are the 100 cases of whiplash each year when a young doc in a miniskirt walks past a 50 something administrator or senior physician. Worry more about how the AHA has consolidated its power base the last 20 years or how JCAOH has changed the rules around so that doctors who try to be patient advocates can be fired or even hounded out of the profession.
I just want to give an amen to all those who made the point about how easy it is for large-chested women to be seen as wearing “inappropriate” attire.
Also, the fashion industry has a big impact on this. It is hard for women to find basic professional wear at a decent price, so much of it is very “trend-based.” So when the stores offer nothing but somewhat low-cut tops, what do you expect professional women will wear?
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever quite grasped the “sexy medical worker” thing. I associate doctors and nurses with pointy objects, uncomfortable tables, and painful, uncomfortable and sometimes embarassing moments.
Where the sexy? The French maid? Okay, they don’t typically poke you with anything sharp. Same goes for the schoolteacher theme and the librarian thing. I can understand it, along with most other fantasy type roles. But they don’t usually jab you with a syringe.
I have to put in a few words here. I work with student teachers (college students preparing to become teachers) and we have this “professional dress” issue with many of them. We tell them repeatedly during the years they are in college about the fact that they are being judged by other teachers and by students and that they need to dress modestly–no bare midriffs, no tight shirts or short skirts for females; no collarless shirts or untrimmed hair for males; no flip flops or shorts or jeans for any of them. And still they persist.
The teachers at the schools are the ones who see them every day and let us know–professional dress is actually a category on our evaluation forms because the teachers consider this so important. You can argue that their profesionalism should be all that matters, but in a school full of teenagers, distinguishing young teachers from those teenagers should not be difficult. That is not to say that I approve of the NY Times article or the responses to it, but I really think that many young people have no idea of what professional or appropriate dress actually is. Or they know (we certainly tell them often enough) and still they think it shouldn’t apply to them. I know I dressed in some too-short skirts when I started teaching 20 years ago. It is only in retrospect that I realize that I should have been more modest. Perhaps the author is expressing this sentiment.
Not only were the pictures NOT of an actual doctor, but they’re all the same woman. The blouse pattern is the same in all of the pictures.
I wonder if some of the prudishness is related to race, class, and appearance. Maybe it’s not so much that these women are conforming to the sexy-nurse/lady-doctor archetype as violating it by having bodies unlike the ones pictured in the illustrations. Or, on a related note, by insisting that they can show cleavage and present themselves as medical professionals.
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever quite grasped the “sexy medical worker� thing. I associate doctors and nurses with pointy objects, uncomfortable tables, and painful, uncomfortable and sometimes embarassing moments.
Yah, definite edgeplay.
I think that some people–myself included–associate them with injections and cold examination tables, but other people might associate them with caring and comfort.
Sinister eyebrow: I love it when you talk dirty like that.
Seriously, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your erotic philosophy, including people who eroticize pointy objects, uncomfortable tables, and painful, uncomfortable, and sometimes embarassing moments, to say nothing of jabs with syringes. For more information, google on “Leopold von Sacher-Masoch” but be aware that some of the links you might find may not be safe for work.
Alan, I think Piny was speaking from knowledge rather than ignorance when he said “edgeplay.” It is, indeed, the sense of exposure, the vulnerability, and the uncomfortable encounters with pointy, sharp and cold things that some of us eroticize, while others who associate the medical professions with those experiences don’t find that erotic. And, as Piny pointed out, others have a different association.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and here’s a picture of the author of this pathetic excuse for an article: http://www.med.miami.edu/grandrounds/images/doctors/emarcus.jpg
Seriously, there has to be a topic more worthy of the attention of an educated woman with an M.D. degree. If there was anything unprofessional, it was that Dr. Marcus would debase herself to write this irrelevant article when her talents could have so very obviously been directed to something more important.
The picture on the article are clearly outlandish and attention-grabbing, and it sucks that only female attire and female doctors are discussed, but I do agree there is a growing problem with unprofessional dress at work, and not only in the medical profession. Obviously, appropriate work attire varies depending on your place of employment and your type of career, but yeah, I think doctors should dress professionally, and yeah, that involves not wearing sexy, revealing clothing to work. I don’t want to see my male doctor in flipflops and ratty jeans either.
I think that some people–myself included–associate them with injections and cold examination tables, but other people might associate them with caring and comfort.
Or, on the other hand, a woman who is intimately familiar with the human body and up to anything involving it.
Used to have a wallpaper shot taken from “Scrubs”, Season 2, with Sarah Chalke in a fetish nurses outfit. Removed it when I realised kids might see my computer…
My biggest question is, To what extent is this really a problem? I mean, if we’re all being honest? Yes, women have a right to wear what they want (up to the bounds of professionalism), and yes, it’s definitely hard to find professional clothing to cover large breasts. But what struck me about the piece was how… personally gripey, I guess, it seemed. There were no recountings of specific incidents where a person wore X outfit with Y result; it was just a couple of people saying, “Oh, yeah, there was some cleavage, and I thought it was, like, bad, and stuff.”
The comments to Rebecca’s column all said, “But professionalism is important,” and I completely agree. I just don’t know that there’s been this huge rash of un-professionalism lately. If there truly were an epidemic of medical workers wearing halter tops and exposed thongs under their lab coats, isn’t that the kind of thing we’d have heard about before? Or do I just happen to have the most prudish and modestly-dressed medical professionals in the world working in my hospital?
Yup. And in terms of patient complaints about professionalism and respect, outfits have gotta be pretty low on the list.
I think that’s the crux of it here. Personally, I’ve never associated medical workers with sharp objects, being jabbed, etc. Yes, I know they do these things, but it’s not an image that comes to mind when I think about it. For me, it is more about the caring, I suppose.
If you ever read Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, you get a sense of how the “caring and comfort” association gets eroticized in a healing context.
“Long flowing hair carries germs”??!!??? Did they steal that line from the Victorian era when women first tried to get into the medical field?
The whole essay sounds like code for “no girls allwoed”. The NYT has just dropped several notches in my estimation for even running this piece of trash.
At one of the clinics i work at there is a doctor who dresses like Ally McBeal. Personally i would probably change oncologists if she were mine.
This whole talk about “professional” attire really bugs me. Could anyone define a professional outfit for a doctor? Some people are supposedly shocked by a doctor wearing jeans. What the fuck? Does wearing a suit make you a better doctor? That’s ludicrous. And for a female physician, is it better to wear jeans or a short skirt? That focus on people’s looks in fields of work where it’s quite clearly irrelevant is completely over the top. Doctors are there to cure people, not to look “good” or “professional”.
I wonder how much of the gripe isn’t sour grapes.
Not the sour grapes that some young female doctors are, well, young and attractive and don’t mind dressing like that, but the sour grapes young women sometimes get from older women who feel that since they (the older women, that is), had to compromise their aesthetic sensibilities, girliness, fashion-sense, whatever, and buy a lot of sensible flats and cut their hair short, it’s just not fair for younger women to be able to “get away” with being professionals and being femmey-girls.
And yeah, a certain contingent of appearance-fixated patients are going to be put off by a purple-haired doctor. Another contingent might be comforted by the same, since some of us don’t believe that a professional degree robs people of their personalities or squooshes them into some mold of the stereotypical doctor.
“And no, of course doctors don’t wear fuck-me pumps. Those are for the drug reps. ”
BWAH! So true. I’ve spent far too much time hanging around doctor’s offices lately and I’ve noticed that the only people who dress up - male or female - are drug reps. They look like they make way more money that my (female) doctors who all seem to wear casual, stain-proof clothes and serious walking shoes.
That being said, this entire article is just an excuse for fantasizing and slut-shaming - and a pretty lame excuse at that.
“I disagree with y’all. Cleavage and miniskirts (and t-shirts and jeans, for that matter) are inappropriate attire for a doctor.”
Says you.
A couple of months ago I had to make a trip to the emergency room. The doctor who saw me was an attractive woman in her early thirties. She was dressed quite sexily (short skirt, high heels, low-cut blouse).
It made the experience much more pleasant.
There were no recountings of specific incidents where a person wore X outfit with Y result
Not “a person” - the whole article was about women. No anecdotes about Dr. Man showing up in Birkenstocks and a flannel shirt, or about the unprofessionalism of male doctors wearing grubby Hooters T-shirts. No, it’s all about those unprofessional girls.
I talked about this article with my mum, who’s a doctor. She told me a story about when she was a student (in 1968) - she turned up for a clinic [when the student doctors are taken round the wards by a real doctor] wearing trousers. She was sent home to change into a skirt, because “we are going to the men’s ward today and trousers might excite the patients unduly”. My mum being her feisty self, she went home and put on the shortest skirt she could find (this was 1968. Skirts were pretty short). And dropped her pen several times during the ward round. And made her point - who decides what is inappropriate and what’s not?
Isn’t it funny how when the ‘unprofessional’ tag is applied to a woman in any profession it’s always about what she’s wearing. Whereas for a guy, it’s be something like breaking the Hippocratic Oath or money laundering or insider training.
Wait - employers and older employees often want people to dress conservatively?! Students and young employees often would rather not!? they would be well advised to dress conservatively so that they can win over slightly more credit and faith from the employer!!! Wow, good gosh it’s good this is in the paper - i never would have known.
Now, here’s hoping they’ll address the phenomena where every day, this huge yellow orb lifts up in the sky and then moves across it and then lowers beneath the skyline, plunging us into darkness. Or possibly an article about how sometimes high schoolers are mean to each other.
I was sent this article at work today, by a “concern troll” on our faculty. I don’t know why, I’ve yet to see an inappropriately dressed MD, resident, or student on our campus (the exception being the folks with their extra OR gear eating in the cafeteria Ugh!). Belive me when I say I could care less how they look, it’s how they do the job.
thistle:I think this is one of those totally made-up problems, in that the guy has been ogling his female residents and wants to make himself feel better about it…I don’t, contrary to the article’s author’s apparent assumption, need a skeezy older man to suggest that I cover up.
Tragically, thistle, it seems that Dr Erin Marcus is in fact a woman. But, you know, carry on jumping to insulting, stereotyped conclusions if you like.
Tragically, thistle, it seems that Dr Erin Marcus is in fact a woman. But, you know, carry on jumping to insulting, stereotyped conclusions if you like.
Well, maybe she’s a skeezy older woman who’s been ogling her female residents.
I’m of two minds on this.
First, I agree that appearance shouldn’t matter, and what should matter is how the doctor engages the patient.
However, a huge part of doctoring is building rapport and getting the patient comfortable and ensuring there’s good two-way communication.
If I was having a great deal of anxiety, and a doctor came in with an unusual (for me) piercing, or with bright, unusual hair color, it would be an additional source of anxiety. I can’t not notice it, and it makes me uncomfortable.
Now, a doctor *could* overcome that discomfort in me, but it might not be easy, especially if we’re both under a great deal of stress… e.g., if there’s a medical emergency involving me or someone I care about.
Herm.
You know what this reminds me of? I was just thinking about this this morning.
Some of the anti-sex folks make it sound as if sex has these indescribably powerful emotional effects, and that if someone dares have teh sex with someone other than with the person to whom they will be married forever (and then, only after that marriage has occurred), it will surely scar them emotionally.
That’s total bullshit.
But the opposite idea, that sex has *no* emotional effects, that it’s blow-off-able, that it’s meaningless, is also total bullshit, especially when one is first starting out, sexually speaking. And even when one is very sexually experienced, there’s still a great deal of emotional risk *if* both (or all) parties aren’t aware of what is going on, and why. If one person thinks “It’s the beginning of true love” and the other thinks “it’s a happy roll in the hay”, there can be problems.
And the same principle holds here. It’s certainly true that a doctor doesn’t have to be stamped out of one of a few molds, in order to look professional and be able to establish rapport. It’s total bullshit to say that a doctor has to fit some ultraconservative image. I think this article is hovering close to the “bullshit” level on this issue.
But it’s also total bullshit to say that a doctor’s appearance has no effect, and that it shouldn’t be carefully considered, because it can cause challenging situations to arise.
If a doctor looks like a slob or shows up in t-shirt and jeans it looks to me as though he doesn’t take his job seriously.
I think this has been more of an issue with women doctors because the men have a sort of uniform, that being-dress shirt-tie-slacks. I think my doctor once wore a polo shirt, but that is as dressed down as i’ve ever seen him.
Now Dr. Ally McBeal is not a slob, but a 30+ health professional wearing a mini-skirt and go-go boots(no, I’m not kidding)also gives the impression that she isn’t taking her job seriously.
So, just by looking at someone, you can see if s/he takes her or his job seriously?
And here, the double standard strikes again: A man is “unprofessional” if he dresses like “a slob” (although if his jeans and T-shirts are clean, I don’t see how it makes him “a slob”). But a woman is “unprofessional” if she dresses like “a slob”, but also when she’s dressed smartly and shows
a) navel
b) knees
c) a bit of cleavage, etc.
Once again, could someone please describe a “professional” female outfit to me? Who gets to decide how much cleavage is too much? As has already been said repeatedly, the definition of “revealing” clothes varies wildly from person to person. Besides, the same clothes will work to a very different effect on different bodies (ie. cleavage will appear very differently according to your breast size).
I was talking to my mom about this yesterday. My mom is 63, doesn’t identify as a feminist, and has a phobia of doctors that has sometimes, in the past, led to her neglecting her health. She said that her current primary doctor wears fashionable clothes and shoes (my mom said that she’s impressed that anyone can stay on her feet all day in the kind of heels that the doctor wears), and that it makes her easier, not harder to deal with. Part of what puts my mother off about doctors is that they create a kind of professional distance, that they don’t seem human. She can’t trust someone who presents themselves only as authority. A white coat is a problem for my mother, while a doctor with distinctive fashion sense is inarguably a human being, and therefore someone my mom might be able trust. She says that clothes that show any personality are better than a bland facade of professionalism.
Now, my mom is clearly pretty eccentric, but my point here is that patients bring with them a variety of perspectives, and you can’t assume that they’re all going to react to clothes in the same way.
Oh puh-leaze Scarlet. I’m sure you would be totally comfortable with a male doctor wearing a speedo during your consultation, but male or female, i don’t want to see my doctor’s thighs.
Professionals need to dress in work appropriate clothes and not like they’re going clubbing, or to a party.
And mature women shouldn’t wear miniskirts, ever. There i said it.
[…] This article bemoaning what young doctors and doctors-in-training wear seems to have kicked up some controversy. It mostly just made me roll my eyes. […]