When Casual Goes Amok

Boots and brown uniform or shiny shoes and blue uniform. Simple. Back when I was an Air Force resident I never had to decide what to wear, just had to make sure it was clean to wear it. Considering dress clothes are little more than expensive, uncomfortable ways of letting other people know how much money you make, I did not mind this situation. Now, however, I am a civilian and being a civilian physician I am also a professional. Time to don a wider variety of shiny shoes and an endless combination of pressed shirts, ironed slacks, and variably colored ties in order to instill confidence in my patients and trust in my medical decision making. A few hundred dollars later, I do not care for it.

Thankfully due to the inherent infection risks involved with ties doubling as improvised germ swabs, ties are optional and I have opted out. My wardrobe is thus about as comfortable as the uniforms I used to wear. The thought of paying $2 a shirt for a wash and ironing to maintain this wardrobe remains ridiculous to me, but I have accepted this reality and in reality it is better than the equally ridiculous alternative of wasting time doing it myself. The problem lies not directly in the wearing and caring for the clothes themselves, but in deciding which clothes to wear.

Being an infectious disease fellow I am compelled to do other things than just take care of patients and trend their blood sugars. I've got to research in order to maintain my infectious disease street cred. Traditionally this involves absolutely no patient contact, and considering our fellows' office is windowless it currently doesn't even involve human contact. I just sit in my room, in front of my computer, and make research magic. Occasionally if I'm feeling adventurous, or losing my mind from sitting all day in a windowless room, I will take my computer to a study area on the eight floor, but even there I don't interact with any human beings in any official capacity. One would think, therefore, that I could perhaps dress casually for such a job. Maybe try to make myself comfortable for something that is inherently tedious and uncomfortable. And one would be wrong.

Not entirely sure what the reaction would be I tried to slowly ease into a more casual form of dress. First I ditched the pressed shirts for generic collared shirts. Then the slacks for run-of-the-mill khakis. And, finally, khakis for jeans and tennis shoes. That's apparently when I got greedy. Based on the numbered of bewildered responses and frequency of exasperated double takes I had gone too far. Research casual, it turns out, ends somewhere between a casual pair of Dockers and a dress shirt with its sleeves torn off. Maybe corduroy pants and a bolo tie would be ok, I don't know. In either case after about the seventh startled, "oh, jeans!" I decided to return to the khakis and collared shirt look just to stay in good standing. Perhaps when I get enough publications under my name I can dust off the ball cap and sport coat look. Just in case I'm feeling a little douchey.