 |
To protect their street clothes, medical professionals or personnel involved in significant laboratory work in hospitals or any chemical or biotechnology firm wear white laboratory coats. This is a knee-length overcoat made from white cotton or linen to allow it to be washed at high temperature. It keeps the wearer safe in case the garment catches fire.
White lab coats are used in counters, food service or in the industrial work. However, the coats are mainly attributed to the doctors. This distinguishes the doctors from the patients. But this was not the case in the mid-1800s. That time, only the scientists wore the white lab coat. And they projected a more respectable image than the doctors who did not wear these garments. Wanting to gain the high authority/credibility look, the doctors started wearing white lab coats, too. Now they have become a symbol of the doctor’s expertise.
In his study of attitudes toward appropriate attire of healthcare providers, Dr. Lawrence J. Brandt stated that most patients regard more highly doctors who sport a white lab coat than those who wear a professional attire. The doctor’s physical appearance strongly influenced a patient’s opinion of the medical care he or she is getting. In fact, a research done by the Royal Free Hospital, London and published in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, found that white lab coats are twice popular among patients than those in the medical profession. The study also showed that the white lab coats are most popular among older patients aged 70 and over. But patients 30 to 39 did not favor the garments. According to Mr. John Heyworth, an accident and emergency doctor at Southampton General Hospital, “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”.
The white lab coats were also not popular among the doctors who responded in the Royal Free Hospital survey. Even as they know that the white lab coats actually intend to provide them maximum protection against splashes or spills from dangerous or infectious chemicals, the doctors found white lab coats hot and uncomfortable. Worse, they think it can spread infection. Some doctors would rather wear scrubs to white lab coats. Scrubs are more comfortable and easy to wash. And for doctors, this is an important characteristic of their garment as patients can sometimes do the unexpected — bleed, vomit and do other unspeakable things over doctors.
The study also revealed that older doctors, including the surgeons and gynecologists, still opt to make use of the traditional white look. The psychiatrists and pediatricians were the least likely to feel that white coats should be worn. The authors of the study also pointed out that several other groups of healthcare workers wear white coats, so they may not be the best form of identification for the doctors.
Today, solid colored lab coats are also being preferred over the white coat as the wearer’s form of self-expression or identity of his field of study. There are professors who may wear black because their students wear the traditional white coat. Pediatricians don lab coats printed with small cartoon characters, planets or stars because this is a friendlier sight to children than the stark traditional white coat. Visit Lab Rat Gear on the web and you can also see the cow or snow leopard style lab coats! Surgeons take on the teal colored coat while hospital staffs are differentiated by the color they wear; nurses, pink; radiologists, blue, etc.
Recently though in the US, the white coat has become popular in medical schools that there has come about a white coat “robing” ceremonies, while in Australia, there appears to be a movement towards rediscovering the white coat as a symbol of “purpose and pride as a profession”. White lab coats are available through easy online ordering. Visit White Lab Coat. You can find great deals on white lab coats on this website.