Did you know, the classic white coat that doctors use today used to be a black coat before 20th century?
The practice of the white coat initially began in the early decades of the 20th century. Before 20th century, doctors used to wear formal, black attire instead of white coats. White coats are believed to be adopted in a mindful effort to impersonate lab coats and create the image of doctors with a science background and to pursue the concept of infertility in medical care, an important subject of that time. Both the ideas were meant to set doctors apart from the common man and, since its adoption, the white became a status symbol. It transformed a person into a person from medical science.
Doctors used to dress in black attire until the late 19th century. Black attire was, and is, considered formal (e.g., today’s tuxedo). Consequently, until about 1900, physicians wore black for their patient interactions since medical encounters were thought of as serious and formal matters.
Clergymen also dressed in black, which indicated the solemn nature of their role in encounters with parishioners. An additional or alternative possibility for the dark clothes might be that until the late 19th century seeking medical advice was usually the last resort and frequently a precursor to death. Until the last third of the 1800s, an encounter with a physician rarely benefited the patient. In fact, up to that point, virtually all of “medicine” entailed many worthless cures and much quackery.
At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when medicine became the truly scientific enterprise we now know, the “whiteness” or “purity” of medicine reflected in the clothing of physicians and, interestingly, nurses. Until that time nuns in black attires functioned as nurses, largely in almshouses.
At the turn of the 19th century the black cloths of the religious nursing orders became white. In fact, to this day nurses in England are called sisters, because of their religious origins. Our society has carried this symbol of whiteness to the marriage altar where brides traditionally wear white as a symbol of their purity.
In the 20th century, the white coat continued as the symbol of medical authority and respect. Probably the greatest development of medical science in the 20th century was the advent of antibiotics toward the end of World War II—the completion of Lord Lister’s dream that bacteria could be successfully overcome. For the first time pneumonia, appendicitis, an infected blister or a toothache no longer condemned one to death.
So, as you can see, transformation in the medical field has also helped the industry to change the perspective of people in the way they were perceived. Transformation is necessary for everyone in every industry to uplift their credibility and for the betterment of the future. So, have you decided to transform your organization yet?
source – AMA Journal of Ethics
