How Long Should Doctors Wear their White Coats?

A group of internal medicine physicians in New York conducted a small study and learned that many doctors don’t have their white coats washed for at least one week. As a result, this became a concern about whether or not it can cause the spread of infection.Edgardo Olvera-Lopez, a doctor who was trained in the UK and is working as a 3rd-year resident doctor in New York, was surprised when he saw his colleagues’ coats. They were dirty and stained. This alarmed him because doctors wore this when checking their patients. He said that he was not sure how long they’ve used it without having them washed. He considered this unprofessional and disgusting considering the fact that they worked with sick people. Due to this, he decided to survey doctors and other resident physicians in the internal medicine department to know how dirty their white coats were and how frequently they had them laundered. The American Journal of Infection Control published his study in November.He found out that some respondents go for more than 2 weeks before washing their coats. He also learned that most of the respondents only have a single white coat. The SHEA or Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America recommends that any clothing that is exposed to a patient should be washed every day. If it’s washed at home, coats should be washed using bleach in a hot water cycle then placed in the dryer. Though a lot of bacteria settle on the white coats, the impact of this in spreading an infection to the patient is yet to be known.