Dressing like a pauper

[MPMD]

I think I’m somewhere down the middle. Used to be on the dressier side of the spectrum. Not anything super expensive, I would buy everything on sale, but used to dress up in clinic with button downs and slacks, occasionally ties. Now I am 99% scrubs in clinic, and generally casual joggers/shorts and T-shirts outside. I will however dress up for nice occasions. Suits for meetings, sports coat with dressier jeans for dinners out, etc. definitely not clothes with holes in them. some of this is specialty specific, for derm I think I dress more casually than the average person.

derm and plastics for sure.

i don't think they let you in a plastics meeting unless your suit is legit from italy or london.

rather than checking badges they peep the watch.

[mkintx]

Going to be a little controversial here, but I think men get away with dressing like a schlub more than women do. People (patients, C-suite types, etc) typically assume men are the doctor, regardless of how they look or what they wear. I think women often use nicer clothing to add to their first-impression credibility.

[STATscans]

Any of you guys normally dress with holes in your clothes, clothes from high school, stuff you'd get from thrift stores?

I still giggle when people think im poor.

Arent you poor?

[STATscans]

Going to be a little controversial here, but I think men get away with dressing like a schlub more than women do. People (patients, C-suite types, etc) typically assume men are the doctor, regardless of how they look or what they wear. I think women often use nicer clothing to add to their first-impression credibility.

I agree but it is also on the women. My wife doesn't wear make up and hardly ever puts on jewelry. and she thinks fashion is a joke. So i think if more women stood up and didnt play into the “must look like barbie doll” mentality maybe things would change?

[Eye3md]

i think if you could fairly easily intuit what other surgeons would wear to a national meeting, if you were truly unable to do so that's kind of strange. most surgeons i know dress up for clinic.

i go to them all the time and can't remember ever seeing anyone dressed so casually except on their way in and out of hotel etc.

to me there are situations when insisting on being dressed for your own maximal comfort verges on being unprofessional. if one of my residents insisted on dressing this way at a meeting i wouldn't do anything to stop them, i would also hope they would understand that if they were going to network and learn about career opportunities this would greatly harm their chances of success.

I agree with you about a resident, or new private practice doc. When you are establishing yourself, it is important to look professional to your patients and referring doc’s. For me, a well established doc, why does it matter how I dress for a national meeting? I want to enjoy, and learn, from the meeting so I am not concerned about dressing uncomfortably (to me).

Once I attended my first national meeting, I saw how everyone dressed, and it still did not make sense to me. To this day, I continue to wear a shirt, tie, and white lab coat in my office or the hospital. Dressing professionally around patients, or at the hospital when conducting medical/business rounds, is worthwhile to show a certain level of professionalism for these particular people. At national meetings, I know very few people, and have no desire to know any more than I already do. If they think I look professional or not, it doesn’t really matter to me. I’ve been in my current practice for over 20 years, I’m very very busy with no desire to get any busier, none of my referrals depend on the people at these meetings, and I’m old enough now to not really give a hoot what people think that don’t know me personally

[Eye3md]

Going to be a little controversial here, but I think men get away with dressing like a schlub more than women do. People (patients, C-suite types, etc) typically assume men are the doctor, regardless of how they look or what they wear. I think women often use nicer clothing to add to their first-impression credibility.

I agree.

[eyecandy]

I agree but it is also on the women. My wife doesn't wear make up and hardly ever puts on jewelry. and she thinks fashion is a joke. So i think if more women stood up and didnt play into the “must look like barbie doll” mentality maybe things would change?

Well there's a quite a range between Barbie and wearing tasteful makeup and jewelry. (Don't even get me started on the baby-doll false lashes Gen-Zers all wear. And they wonder why they're getting dry eyes and recurrent styes --Gross!!)

Women (and men for that matter) should be able to dress up or down as much as they like at work. Prior to the pandemic I never wore scrubs outside the OR and wore nice dresses 1/2 the week. Pandemic hit - scrubs daily so I could wash them. Within the last 6 months I've started re-introducing dresses at work and it feels good. It's nice feeling like a normal person again, with a waistband that reminds me to not eat the donut, instead of a slob. I feel good when I look good. Now, I'm not fancy at all, but I do miss the days of looking nice for dinner parties, nights on the town, a play/musical, etc. Make-up is a complete no-go since the pandemic, not worth ruining my N95 masks which I still wear on the daily.

[Kamban]

I bought blundstone boots. I think they were $200, but they will probably last 20 years. I have a pair of Frye dress shoes that were 150-200, but they’re very nice and I’ve had them for years.

Those shoes are not expensive. They are on the upper end of what regular shoes would cost. I was impressed by blundestone since this has been made in Hobart Tasmania since the 1800's, a place I had a chance to visit. Absolutely charming town that very few people who go to Australia visit.

Anyway, one of the problems is that I have no idea what each style means and how it will fit in the appropriate work / leisure environment. What is classic vs Chelsea. By buying online you run into the problem of the costs of returning it and have to make do keeping something you quite don't love but don't want to go through the hassle/ cost of returning it. Do those blundestone waterproof do well with short hiking trails with a bit of streams / puddles.

Which Frye dress shoes look good to use in a doctor office. $200 at sale is not bad if these shoes / boots last 5+ years.

[Anne]

I agree but it is also on the women. My wife doesn't wear make up and hardly ever puts on jewelry. and she thinks fashion is a joke. So i think if more women stood up and didnt play into the “must look like barbie doll” mentality maybe things would change?

I don’t really understand what you are saying. Is your point that women dressing too femininely causes them to not be taken seriously?

I see 0 women physicians who i think try to dress like a Barbie doll. Makeup/jewelry is a personal preference. At work safety (e.g. potential for patients to grab necklaces /earrings) needs to be taken into account depending on your work setting/specialty but aside from that wear what makes you happy. Men tend to think women make their choices about what to wear with men in mind, but in reality every woman I know, regardless of sexual orientation, dresses the way they do because they like it +/- to impress other women.

I like to dress professionally but not too nicely at work. One, I like to be approachable to patients and wearing an expensive suit would feel out of place IMO in my setting. Two, I want the clothes I see patients in to be washable (not dry clean only). And I don’t want to care if I have to throw something out if an item of clothing gets messed up at work. Three, I need to be able to move very freely to assist patients. Four, when I have dressed up in the past i have gotten comments about my appearance from older male patients that I find creepy and annoying. You can say that’s my perception and they are just trying to be nice but I still don’t like it and find if I dress very plainly those comments are much less frequent.

It can be difficult to find clothes that meet these criteria and that I don’t hate to wear. So when I find some I stock up.

[legobikes]

Four, when I have dressed up in the past i have gotten comments about my appearance from older male patients that I find creepy and annoying. You can say that’s my perception and they are just trying to be nice but I still don’t like it and find if I dress very plainly those comments are much less frequent.

He probably means this, no?

Agree with all your criteria for clothes I wear at work.

[mkintx]

I don’t really understand what you are saying. Is your point that women dressing too femininely causes them to not be taken seriously?

I see 0 women physicians who i think try to dress like a Barbie doll. Makeup/jewelry is a personal preference. At work safety (e.g. potential for patients to grab necklaces /earrings) needs to be taken into account depending on your work setting/specialty but aside from that wear what makes you happy. Men tend to think women make their choices about what to wear with men in mind, but in reality every woman I know, regardless of sexual orientation, dresses the way they do because they like it +/- to impress other women.

I like to dress professionally but not too nicely at work. One, I like to be approachable to patients and wearing an expensive suit would feel out of place IMO in my setting. Two, I want the clothes I see patients in to be washable (not dry clean only). And I don’t want to care if I have to throw something out if an item of clothing gets messed up at work. Three, I need to be able to move very freely to assist patients. Four, when I have dressed up in the past i have gotten comments about my appearance from older male patients that I find creepy and annoying. You can say that’s my perception and they are just trying to be nice but I still don’t like it and find if I dress very plainly those comments are much less frequent.

It can be difficult to find clothes that meet these criteria and that I don’t hate to wear. So when I find some I stock up.

100

[eyecandy]

Anne Ditto everything said

I don’t wear revealing clothes ever to work, way too many creepy old men and women. Funny younger folks won’t say anything, it was always the older crowd- worse in early my 30s and didn’t wear a white coat. Now I use my white coat to ‘hide’ my body. Because I very much dislike any patients commenting on how fit and trim I am. Gives me the creeps. Do patients say this to male doctors? I bet not so much. Sometimes it happens on the daily to female docs.

[G]

[QUOTE=eyecandy;n296820Do patients say this to male doctors? [/QUOTE]

Yes.

[Lordosis]

Yes.

Old ladies. kinda weird. I just ignore it and move on.

The question in my mind is; Do old people act this way because they are old or have they always acted this way and are now old.

In other words when current young people get old will we be creepy? Or will we do something else to annoy the young generations?

[Craigslist]

Its dementia