Article Text
Abstract
In this paper, we address points raised by Stephanie Dancer's article in The BMJ in which she claimed that by ‘dressing down’, physicians fail to adhere to the dignitas of the medical profession, and damage its reputation. At the beginning of this paper, we distinguish between two different senses in which a person can be, as she terms it, ‘scruffy’; and then we address Dancer's three main claims. First, we argue that in regard to the medical profession it is fallacious to assume, as she appears to do, that someone is incompetent or irresponsible when such a judgement is grounded in the fact that a physician is not dressed in a formal way. Second, we argue, contrary to her claim, that the dignified nature of the medical profession is in no coherent way linked to sartorial elegance or lack thereof, but rather, that such dignity is bound to the value of the medical practice in itself, to patients, and to society at large. Third, we examine two ways in which doctors can ‘dress down’ and show that ‘scruffiness’ does not necessarily intimates a lack of personal hygiene. Finally, we show that pointing to mere statistical correlation without causation, cannot be used as an argument against scruffiness. We conclude by suggesting that in the medical context, it is more appropriate to educate patients than to chastise practitioners for not following arbitrary cultural mores.
- Applied and Professional Ethics
- Autonomy
- Clinical Ethics
- Education
- Ethics
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Linked Articles
- The concise argument
Other content recommended for you
- Understanding the role of physician attire on patient perceptions: a systematic review of the literature— targeting attire to improve likelihood of rapport (TAILOR) investigators
- Judging a book by its cover: descriptive survey of patients' preferences for doctors' appearance and mode of address
- What attributes do patients prefer in a family physician? A cross-sectional study in a northern region of Portugal
- Understanding patient preference for physician attire: a cross-sectional observational study of 10 academic medical centres in the USA
- An observational study of patients’ attitudes to tattoos and piercings on their physicians: the ART study
- Understanding patient preference for physician attire in ambulatory clinics: a cross-sectional observational study
- Does the white coat influence satisfaction, trust and empathy in the doctor–patient relationship in the General and Family Medicine consultation? Interventional study
- International patient preferences for physician attire: results from cross-sectional studies in four countries across three continents
- White coat, patient gown
- First year medical students’ perceptions of the impact of wearing scrubs on professional identity: a narrative analysis in the United Arab Emirates