The return of the white coat?

[Octavia]

I think you're right, it all boils down to when there's smoke (an unslightly stain) there's fire (anthrax, Ebola, plutonium et al.). Yet I feel there must be a deeper psychological reason for the whiteness as well. Something to do with the Ivory Tower, with purity of wisdom, with Virginal Truth...

...erm, or perhaps that's just the eggnog and Winter Pimm's talking!

[spuriousmonkey]

I disagree it's a fashion statement. I think it's true that white coats are on the rise, but this is probably due to rise of the litigation culture. Nobody wants anyone to be sued, though how a millimetre of thin cotton is going to prevent any major accident or release of GMO or dangerous micro-organism is not clear to me. Lab coats are often much filthier than the bottoms of one's shoes!

I know a Professor who goes and eats in the cafeteria in his labcoat!!!!

Of course, his is perfectly clean and ironed, and only worn as a status symbol, but still, it is like typing on a keyboard belonging to a computer which is used by everybody for general use, with gloves on.

[frogfactory]

Most people I know seem to use the lab coat to signify 'I'm working', and not wearing one as 'I've just popped into the lab but am not doing anything that can't be interrupted'.

I prefer not to wear one, unless I'm in TC or working with nasties, and I'd go for the full TC style coat either time. I'm not sure when I'd wear the cuffless standard lab coat except when required to for the sake of form. I guess they're a good place to store marker pens and spare gloves.

[tideliar]

I remember back when I started as a tech, asking about getting a lab coat. I was yeleld at:

"Lab Coat? Good God boy! We're physiologists! Physiologists don't wear lab coats... Pharmacologists do!"

But then, as if adding truth to this, albeit 6 or 7 years later, I did my first postdoc in a Pharmacology department. Everyone got three labcoats with their name & degree embroidered on the left breast! (No wonder the silly sods went broke). I love it

They messed mine up though. Instead of Ph.D., it said PHD, so my nickname was Big H

[challenge]

I know a Professor who goes and eats in the cafeteria in his labcoat!!!!

here at the big institute (TM) the people working in the animal facility have to wear lab coats outside of the facility - when on breaks and during lunch hours etc.... and of course the MDs wear their coat as well. So, pretty much everyone except the PhDs (who, to be honest don't seem to wear lab coats too much anyway) are clad in white coats in the cafeteria.

I? I shudder and have to work on my gag reflex since I find it enormously gross to consider lab coats that "can have spot and specks of fluids" on them close to the food area where people bump into eachother.

...then again, I am a microbiologist and probably a tad bit over sensitive when it comes to infectious stuff and naasty fluids

[frogfactory]

the people working in the animal facility have to wear lab coats outside of the facility - when on breaks and during lunch hours etc

How bizarre. Is one of the policy-makers secretly a PETA supporter who wants it easier for fellow animal rights nuts to mark their victims?

[spuriousmonkey]

On a side-note. When I was working in Florida I noticed that nurses, medical doctors and an assortment of medical personnel, thought it was normal to commute to work and back home in their work clothes. In Finland that is strictly forbidden. Even McDonalds employees are not allowed to wear their clothes outside their work place. For hygienic reasons.

Imagine the horror sitting next to a nurse in her work clothes on the bus going home. Did she just treat a case of ebola?

[tideliar]

Same in the UK isn't it?

here in the States it's a symbol of pride.

*gag*

Sitting down to the poker table next to someone in stained scrubs..

I have walked out in protest before

[challenge]

On a side-note. When I was working in Florida I noticed that nurses, medical doctors and an assortment of medical personnel, thought it was normal to commute to work and back home in their work clothes.

Here in the southern US it is the same. It is even more, it is the nurse's responisbility to wash her/his own clothes so that's why tey take them home as well.

As in Finland, in my native Sweden it is forbidden to bring your work clothes out of the work place and they have to be washed at the hospital so it is clear that they are clean and not transmitting stuff...

about the PETA> nope, I think it is because their employer need to see who is on a break and who is not. They wear scrubs underneath since that is what they have in the animal house, sometimes uner the 'safety gear'. the rest of us who work with animals put the safety gear on and then walk out as normal.....

[edman]

Lab Coat has practical purposes:

A technician in my past lab used to wear it whole-day just to cover up the fact that she never really worked! Another used it purely as an ongoing protest against colleagues prefering a bit cold temperature in the lab. A postdoc used lab coat solely to hide her planned evening fashion statements from lab-colleagues. Talk about fashion!

[frogfactory]

...also these coats could be tailored a bit more for the female figures!

(late response) This would never work in my department, since lab coats don't belong to any one person, so have to be very much 'one size fits all'. And there are a couple of rather big lads who need to be included under 'all'.

[Dr Mike]

You have to share your coats?

ugh, talk about unhygienic!

[frogfactory]

Fortunately I'm not doing any TC right now, or I'd probably throw a bit of a benny :p

[Editor]

define 'throw a benny''?

Is that like a wobbly?

thanks,

the Yank

[frogfactory]

Yep, a benny is pretty much identical to a wobbly. I have no idea about the etymology, but I feel I ought to look it up.