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One Nurse’s Opinion: The Benefit Of Wearing A Pure White Uniform

Check out this nurse’s erect posture and direct eye contact. Just one look tells you that she was in charge of HER unit. I bet patients never argued with her about taking their prescribed dose of Anacin. I remember when nurses wore pure white uniforms, starched caps, and white leather nursing shoes. Those nurses looked regal. They walked up and down the halls of the hospital with an air of confidence in their step. They looked professional and they especially looked striking when they topped off their white uniform with a navy blue cape.

Taking a cue from the past, I’ve started wearing a white uniform when I’m supposed to work as the unit charge nurse. I’ve noticed how people respond to a white uniform. People know that I’m a nurse when they see my white uniform and they assume that I’m in charge when I sit behind the nurses station. The white uniform gives me an air of authority and says, “She’s the boss.” My new dress code has not gone unnoticed by the young medical interns and residences on my unit. They started calling me an old school nurse. I get tickled when they say that a white uniform looks more formal than colored scrubs with prints slashed all over them. One resident told me that she had a hard time taking anyone seriously when they wear Scooby-Doo scrubs to work.

Anacin Nurse knew the secret of running a tight ship. Maybe I should freak everyone out and start wearing a nurse’s cap.

*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*

The Friday Funny: Surgeons In Training

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Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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