No more ties for British doctors

This is the smartest thing anyone has ever done:

Hospital dress codes typically urge doctors to look professional, which, for male practitioners, has usually meant wearing a tie. But as concern over hospital-borne infections has intensified, doctors are taking a closer look at their clothing.

"Ties are rarely laundered but worn daily," the Department of Health said in a statement. "They perform no beneficial function in patient care and have been shown to be colonized by pathogens."

The new regulations taking effect next year mean an end to doctors' traditional long-sleeved white coats, Health Secretary Alan Johnson said. Fake nails, jewelry and watches, which the department warned could harbor germs, are also out.

Johnson said the "bare below the elbows" dress code would help prevent the spread of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, the deadly bacteria resistant to nearly every available antibiotic.

Popularly known as a "superbug," MRSA accounts for more than 40 percent of in-hospital blood infections in Britain. Because the bacteria is so hard to kill, health care workers have instead focused on containing its spread through improvements to hospital hygiene.

A 2004 study of doctors' neckties at a New York hospital found nearly half of them carried at least one species of infectious microbe. In 2006, the British Medical Association urged doctors to go without the accessories, calling them "functionless clothing items." (Emphasis mine.)

Damn right, they are function-less. Should any institution ever be dumb enough to grant me tenure, I guarantee that I will never wear at tie again.

Down with the patriarchy and it's useless clothing! Next one to go: pants. If I had my way, we would all walk around in unisex sarongs.

On a side note, who is wearing fake nails in the hospital? How do you put on gloves?