No More White Coat Syndrome

Here's one way to cure White Coat Syndrome: rid the doctors of their white coats.

It seems the recommendations is an infectious disease-related one since those long sleeves are thought to carry cooties germs.

But what these researchers failed to control for was likely this pioneering 'research' by some remarkably desperate soles from the Soap and Detergent Association:

Researchers staked out restrooms at different types of venues in four U.S. cities: Chicago's Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Science and Industry, Atlanta's Turner Field, New York's Grand Central Station and Penn Station and San Francisco's Ferry Terminal Farmer's Market.

Men's hygiene was worst at Atlanta's Turner Field, where just 57 percent of men were observed washing their hands after using the toilet at the baseball venue. But 95 percent of women there washed their hands, the highest percentage observed in the study.

Chicago was the city with the cleanest hands overall. New York was the second-cleanest, Atlanta came in third, and then San Francisco.

Can you believe this stuff? I mean, I'm so PROUD of gool ol' Chicago! We're all such clean Leave-It-To-Beaver types! Do you think the White Coat Researchers tested their germ-carrying claims in different cities? I mean, we have solid clad 'research' supporting the superior cleanliness of Chicagoans who visit public restrooms, don't we?

What's that you say? There might be a little snag in the Soap and Detergent Association's claims - that they might not be so "clean" in their reporting after all?

The researchers could not account for why people appear to be washing their hands less in public bathrooms. And they admitted that because the research was done in different venues, it was not scientifically valid.

Oh shucks. It looks like JCAHO will soon be asking us to follow the Brits' advice and lose those white coats after all.

Well at least my patients won't be able to blame me for their high blood pressure now.

-Wes