During one of my placements my clinical supervisor advised me that I should comb my hair. She commented that although my hair maybe ‘trendy’, consultants may disapprove and not consider me professionally. I was angered by this because as you may know my hair is pretty ordinary, it is not eccentric. I was also angry at the fact that what my supervisor was saying could be true, that our professional status or opinion could be misrepresented or misjudged based on our appearance. Aren’t we taught at a young age that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover?
This possible falsification of our professional opinion is not only damaging to our profession but can be to our patient as our professional opinion regarding their best treatment may not be adequately considered.
I know that we are expected to portray a professional appearance but an avid question is where does this end? Surely our knowledge on a subject and our professional opinion should out way our appearance. Judging a person’s credibility on their appearance is unprofessional and can almost be likened to judging a person by their race, religion or sex.
Reflecting on this we all have a responsibility to keep an open mind regarding people’s appearances, as well as considering that other people may judge our credibility via our appearance. On that note we do have a responsibility to maintain a professional appearance to maintain the dignity that our profession deserves but by no means should this be indicative of an individual’s status.
2 comments:
Trav
This is a challenging topic and becomes a debate about where to draw a line in the sand. I think the answer lies somewhere in the fog of "it depends on circumstances". Many members of the public and professional colleagues will have children, grand-children, friends, etc that express themselves through body image, clothing, jewelry, body art, personal hygeine, etc. I suggest that such individuals will be tolerant and not necessarily link image to poor professional performance.
However, there will also be a sector of the population who will have more conservative approaches. I once worked in a well-regarded private practice where the doctors insisted that one of the physio's remove a stud from their eyebrow.
Certainly during the undergraduate program, where we are guests of organisations providing student placements, I think we have an obligation to comply with personal presentation policies.
You may be able to negotiate these issues more flexibly with future employers, however several employers may also adopt conservative standards. Whilst in an idealistic world, personal presentation along with religious beliefs, sex, race, etc should not cause discrimination, people will and do make assumptions according to their education, experiences, values system, etc. I can understand your strength of feeling about this issue, and acknowledge that our education system encourages non-discrimination and tolerance. However, that does not immediately transfer to others in the community understanding and living those values.
Regards
John
Thanks John
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