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.

First, it took me a bit to figure out what exactly was objectionable about all the pictures at the beginning of the article. Obviously it’s inappropriate to display your navel or your entire sternum down to the xiphoid process (particularly if your ribs are countable), but I’m still not sure what’s so bad about the second picture. Open-toed shoes? Painted toenails? The pigeontoed pose? The slight glimpse, thanks to camera angle, of thigh?

Nearly a decade later, my impression is that more young physicians and students are dressing like that resident. Every day, it seems, I see a bit of midriff here, a plunging neckline there. Open-toed sandals, displaying brightly manicured toes, seem ubiquitous.

It’s true that open-toed shoes are a poor choice for any place you might be exposed to a biohazard; I wouldn’t wear them to the hospital (or probably to work at all, as I don’t find sandals comfortable for extended walking), but I wouldn’t think it strange if an internal medicine physician wore them. (And the biohazard objection is a bit flimsy anyway; nobody objects to doctors showing their wrists or ankles.)

Another complained about a male student who came to class unshaven, even though he hadn’t been on call the night before.

He came to class unshaven? The horror! I hope this physician never visits my school, where male students regularly have beard-growing contests during finals and females often turn up with wet hair (at least you know it’s clean!).

In a study published last year in The American Journal of Medicine, patients surveyed in one outpatient clinic overwhelmingly preferred doctors photographed in formal attire with a white coat to photos of doctors in scrubs, business suits and informal clothes — jeans and a T-shirt for men, an above-the-knee skirt for women.

Above-the-knee skirts are considered informal on the level of jeans and a T-shirt? I guess someone should have told me and thousands of other women before our med school interviews… (Very few people wore what I would call “short” skirts, but many wore skirts an inch or two above the knee. Your average twentysomething woman looks frumptastic in a suit with a below-the-knee skirt.)

Seriously, I know that the way we present ourselves is important, and I take care with my dress. When I’m seeing patients, I usually wear dress trousers, a shell, sweater, or button-down blouse, and closed-toed shoes. I don’t display cleavage or wear casual khakis, very trendy clothes, or jewelry beyond a simple necklace. I take note of what female physicians wear, and I always ask myself, “would I wear this to visit my grandma?”

The problem is, while my grandma is certainly a proper older lady, she doesn’t see anything wrong with her granddaughters looking attractive. Evidently, some of the doctors who will be evaluating me do:

Her research has also found that physician clothing can influence scores on board certification oral exams, in which a senior doctor assesses a younger doctor’s medical knowledge.

“You don’t want to look too attractive to be serious,” she said, adding that “a certain amount of the nerd factor” can help a doctor’s performance.

I’m nerdy, for sure. But I don’t always look like it (though the white coat helps). After having observed the nastiness that resulted when Jill from Feministe dared to dress in such a way that onlookers could tell she has breasts, I’m a bit concerned that simply dressing tastefully and seriously isn’t good enough. Who knows when someone is going to decide that I look too attractive? Maybe I should start shopping at Coldwater Creek.

Posted by Amanda in Gender/LGBT, Medicine |