Patients don’t trust doctors in T-shirts

A senior colleague has complained that junior members of the medical profession are becoming too scruffy. But since doctors are valued for their skill and knowledge, does it really matter what they wear?

The father of Western medicine, Hippocrates, had a clear idea of what a doctor should look like — clean in person, well dressed, and anointed with sweet-smelling unguents. Hippocrates would probably approve of modern hospitals, which offer ‘unguents’ at every turn in the form of hand sanitisers, but he might have an issue with the standard of doctors’ dress.

In fact, some patients are confused about the real doctor as he or she wears no tie, no white coat, no jacket, and has no presence. Doctors are members of a distinguished profession and should dress accordingly.

The stereotypical image is that of the (male) doctor doing his rounds in a shirt and tie, topped by a starched white coat, possibly with a retinue of nurses and students.

So does it matter what the doctor wears? It matters more than you might think. In a study published in the Medical Journal of America in 2005, Rehman et al enrolled over 400 individuals in their study, looking at the effect of physician attire on trust and confidence of patients.

Respondents overwhelmingly (76 per cent) favour physicians in professional attire. Wearing professional dress (that is a white coat with more formal attire) while providing patient care favourably influences trust and confidence. The doctor dressed in casual clothes scored highly for looking “caring and compassionate” while the casual look attracted just 4.7 per cent of the vote.

This might surprise those who see the white coat as a symbol of old-fashioned, patrician medicine, in conflict with the more modern idea of casual dress fashion in many workplaces. The white coat was adopted by 19th century physicians keen to align themselves with the world of science.