I am an attending physician, hospitalist. In my hospital, almost all of the medical specialty docs wear professional clothes and most of the surgical specialty / ER docs wear scrubs. In addition to that, almost anyone else who works in my hospital, is in scrubs. However, all of my colleagues wear professional clothes – you know, pant-shirt, blouse-skirts etc. I do that too, but I like to wear scrubs. Now, my director (leader of the hospitalist program, aka, my boss) is a 40-ish female physician and feels STRONGLY against scrubs. She says that you are not a moonlighter or a resident and shouldn't wear scrubs, and in extreme cases, if you have to, please wear a white coat on top of it. Everytime she sees me wearing scrubs, she shows such genuine surprise and remarks about it. Kind of unnerving.
Now here is what I think about scrubs :-
– they are super comfortable
– its a hassle to make sure clothes are clean, ironed and ready, every morning, especially with a 7 am – 7 pm schedule, not to mention the pain to mix and match styles and colors
– they are super professional for the type of work I do , FFS, I am not wearing a bikini thong while seeing a patient
– they are issued by the hospital, if it was so wrong, the hospital would just stop issuing scrubs to me
– I dont see a point walking into an infection with my $100-200 worth of professional clothes
– almost ALL other countries, anyone who works in a hospital, is MANDATED to wear scrubs (aka hospital supplied clothes), I dont understand the American obsession of dressing up like a car salesman
– my job is 100% clinical ( well 20% clinical and 80% computer typing), I dont have ANY managerial or administrative duties and its 100 % inpatient. I am dressing for the job
– I tried to look up my hospital official policies, but so far, no luck. I guess we are just expected to dress up professionally.
I want to know how to deal with the situation. I have expressed my desire to wear scrubs multiple times, but she just doesnt get it. In the back of my mind, I want to say that unless you tell me I will be fired or disciplined for wearing scrubs, I will continue to wear them, But honestly I would never want it to escalate it to this level.
So, what should i do ?
Should i talk to the director ?
Should I just give up and start dressing up like a car salesman ?
Is there a middle ground ?
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