The

The It's Dr. Sue's podcast at Dr. Stu's podcast.com.

I'm Brian Whitman with Dr. Stuart Fishbein.

He is Dr. Stu.

How are you?

Brian, thanks for asking.

I am actually quite well today. So usually it's the

doctor asked the other guy, how is he? That's right. That's usually my first question. And you don't

have to wear the lab coat. No, I actually gave up the lab coat about 25 years ago. Now, is that

an emotional thing for a doctor to give up the lab coat? Because, you know,

to me, if I became a doctor tomorrow, I would sleep in my lab coat. I would never take it off.

Well, I think the lab coat has always sort of represented the hierarchy of medicine. So a doctor

wearing the full-linked lab coat was the professor, the students wore the half-length lab coat. And that sort of

still goes on in academia. And if you go to hospitals where there's residents, they're all wearing

lab coats. That's sort of a sign of respect. It's also a sign to keep their clothes clean from

stuff they may encounter. But I think in the private practice setting, lab coats are way too formal.

I don't think that physicians should be wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt. I always wear a shirt and

tie when I'm at work. But I think the lab coat is sort of frightening. People have what's called

you've heard the term white coat syndrome yeah right and that means that when they

come in to a doctor's office they're already nervous you take their blood pressure when they first come in

it's really high by the end of the visit you take it again and it's back down to normal i've had doctors

actually i'd go in they would take my blood pressure and they would say sky high i take blood pressure

...