White coats

"Excuse me, are you the doctor?"

It has been an ongoing joke in the hospital how we as medical students are confused as doctors by various staff and patients. Without knowing people by their face, there is no way to tell easily who is a doctor (and their level) and who is a medical student.

Some doctors lament that up until quite recently, the doctors and medical students at our hospital wore white coats. The length of the white coat also was different if you were a medical student or a doctor of varying seniority. Back then, you could easily tell who was who, and there would have been less confusion among staff and knowledgeable patients on the level of the medical student or doctor. However, now the only way to tell is by looking at the person's ID card, and if you're close enough to do that, you may as well just ask.

One of my tutors also commented that the white coat was also useful to have since it had many pockets to put items in. Now we have to carry everything in our hands, which is a lot less convenient. There have been a few studies in the literature demonstrating that patients still preferred white coats though.

On the other hand, the reason why white coats were phased out was because of infection control. They were worried that we would spread infections from patient to patient through the coats. Apparently the coats supplied by the hospital were not washed every day. It would probably have been possible to minimize spreading infections by washing the white coats every day, but perhaps it was too expensive for the hospital.