Your Doctor’s White Coat Might Be Really Dirty
One physician’s advice on how to stay clean
The doctor’s white coat. Some might imagine it pressed and sparkling, radiating confidence and demanding respect — the very symbol of a figure who heals your illness and makes you feel better.
But how clean, really, is a white coat or any of a doctor’s clothes for that matter? Why do doctors wear them? How often are they washed? And how many doctors in scrubs and white coats carry germs from person to person, unknowingly infecting patients with viral or bacterial illness?
The answer might surprise you.
The history of the white coat
The white coat was a staple of highly successful doctors many generations before our time. But the original version wasn’t the same white coat you may be used to today. Physicians in the early 1800s wanted a way to display their success to colleagues and patients, literally. At that time, they wore black clothing to signify formal dress and would wear white aprons. What better piece of clothing than a white apron to show off blood and guts — signs of a busy physician?
Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician in the mid-1800s, was among the first to discover the effects of dirty doctor clothing. By statistically tracking…
