Dressing Well in Medicine

What to Wear For Your Medical School Interviews and How to Dress Professionally Throughout Your Career in Medicine

By: Paul Thomas MD

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Dressing Well in Medicine is a short guide for dressing well in medical school and beyond. You will need to look like a professional from the beginning of your medical school interview trail, to the whirlwind of clerkships and rotations, through your residency interviews and residency training, and eventually through your day-to-day clinical practice.

Dressing professionally is important because the trust and confidence of your patients depends in large part on your appearance, and professional attire greatly improves your appearance. A smartly-dressed, polished, and tasteful physician inspires confidence - the rumpled, disheveled, or schlubby doctor does not inspire that same confidence.

Therefore, I have written this book to give general guidelines for what to wear in the clinical setting and I believe that you will find it useful no matter where you are in your career.

As a medical student, there was no clear guidance on how to dress for a successful career in medicine. There’s no course in the medical school curriculum dedicated to appearance and demeanor. There’s no opportunity to discuss how our physical presentation as physicians can help us have better interactions with our patients or how our wardrobe choices can improve our chances of landing the residency program of our choice. There’s often not even a lecture on this topic.

I firmly believe that when we physicians dress intentionally, we can uplift the doctor-patient relationship and create the practice environments that enhance this sacred relationship at the level of the clinic, the hospital, and across the healthcare system.

I wanted to start a dialogue with aspiring doctors and practicing physicians about what we wear and why it matters. I truly believe that by dressing well in medicine, we can be our best selves as physicians, community leaders, and as leaders in the healthcare space.

Let this book serve as that missing piece of the curriculum, that crucial conversation on clothing choices and their impact on our patients, colleagues, and broader community.