White Lab Coats Become Symbols Of Service Reviews
They’ll probably be decked out in the traditional cap and gown when they graduate, but more and more medical students are being “cloaked” in white lab coats when they start medical school.
The practice of dressing new medical students in white lab coats was begun in 1993 by Columbia University School of Physicians and Surgeons. University and medical school officials have said that the ritual of helping a apprentice don his or her own white lab coat represents broadcast service and professionalism.
Since Columbia started the ritual, some 100 U. S. Medical schools have adopted the practice of “white coat ceremonies.” To some people the ceremony seems anachronistic, while others welcome it as a way to impress medical students that they’re called to be professional and empathetic with their patients.
The imagery of white lab coats reconnects today’s medical professions with the historic reasons that the attire was originally adopted in the 1880’s.
By the mid-19th century, many significant scientific advances had been in medical care, such as Louis Pasteur’s development of smallpox vaccine and Joseph Lister’s theories on germs as the cause of disease. Doctors started wearing knee-length white coats as a way to protect themselves from blood and other bodily emissions.
As doctors who practiced scientifically based medicine increased, the broadcast at large started to see white lab coats as symbols of their authority as well as practical protection from contaminants. The same reasons exist today for the continued practice of wearing white lab coats – protection and prestige.
Times may be changing, but. While medical workers who come in contact with blood and other bodily fluids may benefit from white lab coats, family tree physicians, internists and others who don’t deal daily with traumatic wounds or bleeding situations may not need them. In fact, the renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, prefers that its doctors not wear white lab coats. The coats set up a psychological barrier between doctor and patient, say clinic spokesmen, standing in the way of doctor and patient working together as partnerships to treat and heal and illness.
Recent studies back up the Mayo Clinic’s perspective. For instance, studies have uncovered the incidence of a condition known as “white coat hypertension.” Research found that the blood pressure of patients with hypertension was higher in a doctor’s personnel or clinic than it was in the patients’ readings at home. The discrepancy was attributed to a dense of stress or powerlessness on the patient’s part. An American study later confirmed that those patients didn’t care what a doctor wore, as long as he or she (the patient) expected excellent care and made a complete recovery.
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