S4E18: Dressing for the Job

Margaux: I want cheese. I'm really hungry.

Harjit: Oh my god, I ate cheese for breakfast.

Margaux: Yum.

Harjit: And it was so yum, yum, yum.

Leen: I think cheese is perfect for any time of the day.

Harjit: I love cheese. Cheese is life. Cheese is my love. Cheese is everything.

Margaux: Cheese is everything to me too.

Harjit: Hi, everyone, this is Harjit. And in our virtual studio, we have Leen and Margaux. We are talking, hey. Okay. So our topic is professionalism. I hope you all tuned into part one, where we talked about professional behavior. And then today we wanted to talk a little bit more about another part of professionalism that is often spoken about, which is a dress code. We all love fashion.

Margaux: Yes.

Harjit: Fashion is life. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, let's get into it.

Margaux: Oh, my gosh, so much to say. And also, I think we did talk a little bit about this in season one, when we talked about dressing for interviews and how there's so many options with so much stress in like deciding what to freaking wear, and how unfair that is. And I think this ties perfectly into this idea of professionalism that there is an expectation of appearances, especially for women or femme identifying people to wonder what you're going to wear and like how to fit into that box. Because the truth is, this system was not designed with women in mind. It was like, at one point, it was illegal for women to even wear pants. And so like, oh my gosh, there's just so much to talk about.

Harjit: Like so much.

Margaux: For me, the dress code in medicine is really rooted in elitism, right? Like, I think we're expected to wear suits or look "nice and professional" is a way to set us aside as being the educated doctor in the room. But it's like your patient knows they're the patient, and they know you're the doctor, like you don't need to be wearing this stuff to signify that it. But I really do think it's rooted in elitism. I don't know how you guys feel about dress codes, but.

Harjit: I 100% like agree with that, Margaux. It's really a way to separate yourself from "the common people" and make yourself seem like separate from rather than. It goes away from the team aspect of what I think real professionalism is, right? I also have been thinking a lot about how expensive it is to dress nicely. Who can afford that? If you're like a first generation, like immigrant or even not an immigrant and just don't have money to go to medical school, and you're living off of loans, how will you buy the stuff that makes you "professional," right?

Margaux: Right.

Harjit: Because that's expensive.

Margaux: Right. So true.

Leen: I think the dress code in medicine is definitely shifting. I think it's shifting to the fact that, you know, less people are wearing white coats. I mean, we have other ways of identifying who's a doctor, who's, you know, part of which team member which and which, but I've noticed I think the dress code is increasing maybe more subjectively for women in medicine. I think oftentimes we find ourselves having to dress more professional for people to recognize us as their doctor. I have my attendings who will wear white coats, and it's just to differentiate them so that their patients know that they're the attending doctor, and they're not stereotypically what patients would think as like their nurse or their aide or anything like that.

But I think, in general, I don't know. Have you ever seen those photos of like old 1800 like doctors, and they look like birds pretty much? I've been thinking like how did we get from that professional standard to this professional standard? And then I think it all kind of stems from like, you know, this buttoned up jacket, suit, whatever. When you say elitism, there's all this fashion stems from they would be like the elitist in European culture, how they used to dress compared to the rest, right? That's the way bowties and all those things came about as well, right? We need to be able to separate the fact of professionalism dress and elitism versus like identifiers of who we are in the team.

Harjit: This is one part of professionalism that I think is being like you see a shift and a change. I think people are more and more comfortable being unique and being themselves and dressing the way they want to. But I think, again, it's that like apprehension because we've been socialized to think like professionalism has these categories. So we have to dress a certain way, right? And going back to the thought process that if you showing up to see your patient and you focusing on their health should have nothing to do with the way you're dressing up. I think it's just another way for people to . . . are in positions of power to utilize. It's just another thing to utilize to ding people and make them feel like, "Oh man, I have to dress a certain way, otherwise I'm going to get in trouble." This is just another characteristic of professionalism, like I have said in the episode before, that people utilize as a form of punishment.

Margaux: Also, I think how infuriating is it that we have to as women or femme presenting people have to feel like we have to wear a white coat or dress up and wear clothes that are probably uncomfortable for us to designate that we're a physician to overcome implicit bias of society that women cannot be doctors. I think that challenging not only the dress code, but that idea is also helping break down the barriers because like you said, Harjit, like what we're wearing should have no bearing on how we're treating our patients.

So I will ask the question, like, would you guys ever wear jeans to clinic? And I think this came up in med school too.

Harjit: I would. I would. I wear black jeans to clinic all the time.

Margaux: Yeah, but like blue jeans.

Harjit: But I guess black jeans, they kind of look professional because I am. I'll be honest, I was still scared. As a med student. I mean, we're talking about this is the way we want the world to be. But the truth is I've been scared to do a million things because I'm scared, is this going to be seen as professional? Not even is this professional or not. But is this going to be seen as professional because I don't want to get in trouble, right? I don't want to have another reason for people to be upset with me.

But yeah, I hope, in the future, I'll start wearing jeans. I've like started wearing hoops to work, which I'm really excited about. And I try to wear like colorful dresses and things like that. I want my patients to be treated by a person, right? Not a robot. Like I want them to know who I am, like this is Dr. Kaur. You know, this is her personality. I hope to be a little bit more myself, so that I can dress the way that I want to. But yeah, I want to wear jeans to clinic. I've seen it done. There was an attending, who's a family medicine attending who would always wear jeans to clinic and I loved it.

Leen: In terms of identifying or connecting with your patients, I feel like the way you dress is very significant. For instance, if you are wearing hoop earrings, if you are wearing jeans, they're going to feel a lot more down to earth with you than if you walk in there with either business suit, or white coat, or whatever, and I think in the emergency department, so this is actually interesting, because I mean, we all wear black scrubs, I love our black scrubs, don't get me wrong. But the thing is I've heard from different people like saying I can't wear a hat. And then we look at our patient population. And honestly, they really don't care if we wear like a cap on our head or . . .

So I wear my boots to clinic, I shouldn't say clinic to the emergency room. At the end of the day. It's like it's something that also helps me get confidence. And also and I mean, and my boots can freaking kick stretchers like nobody's business, right? And patients always point out my boots. They be like, "Oh, my gosh, I love your boots, they're badass," whatever, it just connects with them, versus you walk in and you're totally like the picture of a doctor off of like Google Images, it's less of a connecting moment in there. And I think now, even if you want to even take it all the way into the professionalism, capitalism machine where we care so much about patient ratings, right? If you're able to connect with your patients in that short amount in the emergency room, whether they find you approachable or not, there you go. There's your rating, right?

Margaux: Right. And honestly, if you're more comfortable, like in those shoes, or in the dress that you're wearing rather than a suit or whatever is deemed professional, you're going to be more able to focus on your patient and like connect with them on a more grounding level as well.

Harjit: I also just wanted to point out that some people do like wearing pants suits and super fancy dresses. And I think the whole point of this conversation is we shouldn't be policing what people wear. We shouldn't be deciding for them what they should be wearing. That has nothing to do again, with the respect aspect that I think is really tied with what professionalism really means.

Margaux: I agree with that, Harjit, and something interesting that I've seen on TikTok is fat women and I use the word "fat" because that's how they are choosing to identify in the body liberation movement. There are skits about them going to HR and HR is essentially saying you shouldn't wear leggings anymore because it doesn't look good on your body. And then it flashes to a non-fat person wearing the exact same thing as the assistant to the HR person and sort of meant to demonstrate how people . . . essentially our fatphobia in professionalism in policing what people are wearing and perpetuating harmful stereotypes and implicit bias that way.

So yes, to what you said, Harjit, we should not be policing what people are wearing. And I think that also applies to hair. For me, I've wanted, I had purple hair before medical school. And I think I like really grappled with the idea of wanting to have my hair purple again, but that it was never . . . it wasn't professional. And so it's something that has come up again, for me, and I really want to do, but I still am struggling with that. But like, why does having purple hair or pink hair make you unprofessional or any less capable of caring for a patient? I think it comes back to elitism, where maybe purple hair or pink hair is associated with not this level of education doctors and whatever. But like eff that. We can totally take care of a patient whether your hair is purple or black or blue or brown or whatever you want.

Leen: Actually, I started to notice a trend in the last couple years that it's more accepting of colored hair in the professional environment. I don't know if you've guys have noticed that or not. But I remember like, as a middle schooler, or as a high schooler, they'd be like, oh, like you'd get suspended for that kind of stuff, right?

Margaux: Yeah.

Leen: And then I was like, nervous in medical school to dye my hair red, because I was like, "Oh, my gosh, maybe they're going to judge me. They're going to think I'm less of a professional person, less of an intellect," I guess. I don't know.

Harjit: Yeah, totally.

Leen: I feel like that's different now. I have so many colleagues who have purple hair and pink hair. And then you know, and I'm just thinking like, this is awesome. It's definitely . . . it makes the population a lot younger and the professional side.

Harjit: I really like that you say that because I think it's evolving too. I think this is one area of professionalism that we can learn from, right? Like a lot of people are changing that, in the same way that we're changing the way we dress, it's okay to like I said, speak a certain way, act a certain way. But you're still professional. But there always is that fear.

Margaux: Yeah. And I think slowly is changing, because I have seen a lot of people in the hospital with, although they are not the attendings or the residents who have the colored hair.

Leen: But I've had an attending who also had purple hair too, so it's definitely changing.

Margaux: That's amazing. Okay. No, I'm going to do it. And that also brings me to think about natural black hair and how historically they've been discriminated against when their hair is not conforming to like white European standards of hair and how much pressure they feel and money they have to spend to do that. And again, it comes back to what you said, Harjit, let's not police people on what they're wearing or their hairstyle. However, they choose to wear their hair, there should be no judgment there and understanding of different preferences and innate genetic differences in hair as well.

Harjit: Yeah, but it was just like, again, used as another tool to make things harder for certain people from certain populations. And like, I think coming back to that point that professionalism is used as a tool to oppress people. So continue to question whenever that word comes up in whatever context. Also, you all remember during the beginning of intern year, I think it was that whole like bikini med or like hashtag med bikini, there was this whole like movement of people showing off whatever they wear during the summer to go swimming. And so I thought that was like a really cool thing to bring up. But I also thought it was so interesting that it became such a big deal. Interesting, in the sense that like, obviously, it would become such a big deal because people are so out to like sexualized bodies. First of all, there's a lot of, like, issues with that whole Twitter thread. Do you all remember this?

Margaux: Yeah. And then there was an article in the vascular surgery magazine or something, like saying how it's unprofessional, right?

Harjit: Yeah.

Margaux: And that was, and then . . .

Harjit: And I think it was like for residencies or something.

Margaux: Yeah. And how basically, how women and femme presenting people in professional jobs should not be posting pictures of themselves in their swimwear, essentially, because (a) I think what you said Harjit women and people are highly sexualized in our society. And it doesn't fit to this box of "professional appearances." And so I think that brings us to our next episode, which is about social media and how we all express our own identities and opinions through social media. And yet, many institutions or professional places of work try to censor and claim our social media as their own. And so I think that's a great transition point to our next episode, unless you want to say anything else about the bikinis.

Harjit: Also, just like thinking about that I remember it was in third year and I was in my surgery rotation and it was clinic day. And I saw one of my classmates who was wearing like this really cute dress and it was what is considered shorter, but she looked super cute and "professional" in it. And I was like thinking to myself, if someone who's background is more sexualized would have wore that exact same dress, the way that that person would appear in it would be different, right? So that's why I'm saying it's really complicated. It's like a complicated topic. There is a lot of racism, sexism, and all those things tied into the dress code, which I think we kind of addressed in this episode.

Margaux: Yeah, exactly, Harjit. So thank you all for listening to this episode of our part two about professionalism, specifically dress codes and professionalism. Join us next week for part three, which is about social media and personal expression. Make sure you check us out @bundleofhers on Instagram. You can keep the conversation going there and download our episodes anywhere you get downloads. Download our episodes anywhere you get your podcasts. And here's a sneak peek for next week's episode.

Harjit: Honestly, the biggest issue with professionalism is we are hiding who we are.

Leen: How are you supposed to be inclusive of all cultures, backgrounds, and everything for our patients and that's what you're trying to bring us into medicine so that we can be able to connect with those patients, but then try to subdue us into a very uniform way of thinking.

Margaux: Our collective voices can be so powerful on social media and why they try so hard to silence and censor and prevent it from getting out of control in the first place, because there is so much power in it.