farmdoc's blog post number 495

Today’s post is the second of three about this mad world we live in. The American Medical Association’s Council on Science and Public Health is studying the role clothing plays in transmitting bacteria and other bugs. In its sights are white lab coats, stethoscopes, and even ties (dangly ones, I assume, and not bow ones). MRSA and other hospital infections cause nearly 100,000 deaths in US hospitals each year. And a 2004 study found that 48% of ties worn by hospital workers carried at least one infectious microbe. Big bloody whoopy do! Until bugs on clothing and stethoscopes can be shown to cause infections, there’s no need to intervene. Not to be outdone, two years ago the UK’s NHS adopted a policy prohibiting lab coats, ties, below-elbow sleeves, watches, and even long fingernails. The medical conservatives – I expect of an older demographic – are resisting the change. Professor Richard Cohen of Cornell University said: ‘When a patient shares intimacies with you and you examine them in a manner that no one else does, you’d better look like a physician – not a guy who works at Starbuck’s’. In the popular imagination, a white lab coat is as much a part of a doctor’s persona as a cowboy’s 10-gallon hat…’ Okay, but I think the diehards will lose. Why? Because they’re sheep people in cattle country; and it’s a MMMMW.