This thread is designed to explore why nursing professionals and other professionals wear white lab coats to work. As most of us know, medical doctors have had a long history of wearing white lab coats. We also see PAs and APRNs wearing white lab coats, which makes sense to me, given that mid-levels are quasi-colleagues of MDs and prescribers in their own right.
However, I have even seen nurse managers, nurse educators, case managers, and skin team nurses running around hospitals in those long white lab coats. Why? It has even gotten to the point where sometimes I'll walk onto a unit and there are more people wearing white lab coats than there are "normal employees." It's hardly even a status symbol anymore, certainly not when more people are wearing them in a given situation than not.
Some of you may disagree with this, but I think white lab coats are ugly as hell and that wearing one demonstrates an utter lack of style. It's become what people are wear when they can't figure out how to put together an impressive outfit. If I were a mid-level practitioner, I wouldn't EVER wear a white lab coat if I could help it. I'd rather wear well-fitted, professional clothing.
Besides having no style, there are other downsides to wearing those long white lab coats. For one thing, they show everything. I can't even begin to count how many times I've seen people in those coats with black pen marks all over. That's professional looking. Or how about when people drape their lab coats over the backs of swivel chairs? Someone then sits down and starts idly rolling their chair around while the bottom of the person's lab coat drags along a nice gritty, dirty floor. Then they can come back and put on their nice, gritty, dirty lab coat. Ewwwwww.
Alternatively, someone will sit down in a chair with the lab coat still on and it gets all scrunched up under their buttocks. Have you ever noticed how EXTREMELY wrinkled those long white lab coats are in the back? Bingo. That's why. Just look around next time you're at work. The backs of everyone's lab coats are wrinkled and it looks terrible.
So... what is the point of them? If you wear one of these white coats, what is the purpose? Do you like how it looks? Is there some amazing utility to these coats than isn't afforded by normal clothing? Okay -- they have a lot of pockets. I can see the benefit of those pockets if you're working in a lab or are carrying a lot of instruments. However, if you're a paper pusher like a case manager or a unit manager, then what are all the pockets for? What am I missing here?
Isn't a laundress who you take your clothes to in order to have them laundered? Unless you do your own laundry. Sometimes I do my own at home; but some things I take in.
mrsjonesRN said:
The OP is always trying to troll and stir the pot by asking appearance-based questions...
I wear a white coat - or jacket I suppose as I usually wear the short to the hip style - a consultation coat is what I think it's called.
I had never heard this term, so I googled. This image came up. This guy seems really fascinated by the manometer? I'm not sure what he thinks he is doing!
(In my head he is trying to use a "nurses BP cuff" but has no idea how to work it.)
Isn't a laundress who you take your clothes to in order to have them laundered? Unless you do your own laundry. Sometimes I do my own at home; but some things I take in.
I had never heard this term, so I googled. This image came up. This guy seems really fascinated by the manometer? I'm not sure what he thinks he is doing!
(In my head he is trying to use a "nurses BP cuff" but has no idea how to work it.)
I've worn one many times. I do community health fairs & vendor REQUIRES us to wear one.
But I've worked several places that in order to leave our unit, we put on a lab coat or change.
I've also worked as a supervisor & it was outlined in my job handbook. It went over street clothes.
Back in the day when we wore starched white uniforms, I had to wear one to my unit, especially in nursing school because we got sent home (failed day & probably course) when we didnt.
When I was still doing MICU in a large teaching hospital I did have a white coat...all medical a nursing staff had them. The med students had short coats, interns/residents/attending had full length. Nurses had long coats that came to our mid calf. I would wear it in the evenings when it was cold and drafty and it was quite nice actually. When I stopped taking care of adults, I left the white coat behind in my locker and never even thought anything of it.
Back in the old days, I actually had my original nursing cape that you wore to the hospital but never when you took care of patients because you didn't clean it everyday like you did your caps and uniforms. It was wool and so warm and wonderful. My kids and grandkids destroyed it playing with it long ago long after I stopped wearing it. I wish I still had it. You can't get them anymore and my nursing school has been closed for years.
However, whenever I do nursing, I still wear my white uniform AND my cap...proudly. In my day, the cap was something that we worked hard for and were proud of. I'm retired from critical care nursing and now work as a substitute assistant nursing taking care of special needs children in a large urban district. I get "Yes, ma'me, no ma'me" and have never been disrespected by even the most unruly student. Even today, my cap commands respect because I wear it with the same pride as the day I earned the right to do so.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
applewhitern said:
I didn't read thru all the responses, so forgive me if this has already been mentioned. Medical students (not nursing students) wear a short white coat; mid-level providers wear a hip length coat, and full-fledged MD's wear the long white coat. This is simply tradition, and signifies your position in the medical world. That said, way back when I was in nursing school in the 80's, we were required to wear a long white coat over our street clothes when in the hospital. If we were doing clinicals, we wore our student nurse uniform.
When I was a student (early->mid 80s) we were warned at the beginning that lab coats were to be no longer than hip length. Those short white coats still look dorky to me.
I never knew what the consequences would have been had any of us gotten long white coats, but even the most rebellious of my classmates didn't dare try to find out.
RNdynamic
528 Posts
Isn't a laundress who you take your clothes to in order to have them laundered? Unless you do your own laundry. Sometimes I do my own at home; but some things I take in.
This thread was not a troll.