“Excuse me, may I talk with you for a moment…alone?” a female patient in her mid-30s tapped on my shoulder as I was exiting the room.
Why does she want to speak with me? Did I say something wrong?
“The other medical student with you…” she gestured towards another student who was with me that day, “Can you not have her come in the room later? I don’t want my kids to see the tattoos on her arms.”
“So that was why the patient wanted to speak with me in private! She didn’t want to see the medical student with the tattoo,” I thought to myself.
After what the patient told me that day, I have been wondering: how many patients out there who do not want to see a health care professional with tattoo? How many would actually voice their opinions about it to the clinician?
A survey of the American population in 2006 shows that 36% of people (born between 1975-1986) have at least one tattoo of some type, and 32% have nontraditional piercing. It’s 1 out of 3 of us. So it is not surprising that we see medical students, or even attendings, who have body art or piercings of some type.
But how is visible body art perceived by our patients? The acceptance of body art in clinical setting remains debatable. I suspect that most patients tend to lean toward the conservative side. Are they perceived as “health care risks” or a “not-so-serious” image of a clinician?
Do medical students or physicians who appreciate body art and want to express their love for ink or piercing have to conform to the society’s perception of what "normal" is? Or do we accept ourselves and ignore the judgmental patients?
Do we have to change ourselves so the patients will not think less of us? Or do we have the right, just as everyone else in the population, to express ourselves? Would the difference of viewpoints interfere with the patient-physician relationship? Are there two different "cultural norms:" one for the general population and one for the medical world?
As someone who does not possess any body art or nontraditional piercing (I do have pierced ear lobes, however!), I cannot relate to how my colleague must have felt when she was denied by the patient.
**The original post appeared on Medscape "The Differential" on Mar 30, 2015.
Why does she want to speak with me? Did I say something wrong?
“The other medical student with you…” she gestured towards another student who was with me that day, “Can you not have her come in the room later? I don’t want my kids to see the tattoos on her arms.”
“So that was why the patient wanted to speak with me in private! She didn’t want to see the medical student with the tattoo,” I thought to myself.
After what the patient told me that day, I have been wondering: how many patients out there who do not want to see a health care professional with tattoo? How many would actually voice their opinions about it to the clinician?
A survey of the American population in 2006 shows that 36% of people (born between 1975-1986) have at least one tattoo of some type, and 32% have nontraditional piercing. It’s 1 out of 3 of us. So it is not surprising that we see medical students, or even attendings, who have body art or piercings of some type.
But how is visible body art perceived by our patients? The acceptance of body art in clinical setting remains debatable. I suspect that most patients tend to lean toward the conservative side. Are they perceived as “health care risks” or a “not-so-serious” image of a clinician?
Do medical students or physicians who appreciate body art and want to express their love for ink or piercing have to conform to the society’s perception of what "normal" is? Or do we accept ourselves and ignore the judgmental patients?
Do we have to change ourselves so the patients will not think less of us? Or do we have the right, just as everyone else in the population, to express ourselves? Would the difference of viewpoints interfere with the patient-physician relationship? Are there two different "cultural norms:" one for the general population and one for the medical world?
As someone who does not possess any body art or nontraditional piercing (I do have pierced ear lobes, however!), I cannot relate to how my colleague must have felt when she was denied by the patient.
**The original post appeared on Medscape "The Differential" on Mar 30, 2015.