Some things are just good to have. A lab coat for instance. If you ever need that air of of actually being credible a good old fashioned doctor’s lab coat seems to do the trick. Well at least that used to be true. These days I see fewer and fewer doctors wearing coats, not that I visit the hospital a lot. I think the public perception of what a doctor should look like was changed with the number of medical shows. In medical dramas you want the doctors that are wearing scrubs to be doing any actual treatment or surgery because they get their hands dirty on a regular basis but while they have practical skill you want the doctors in the lab coats to be performing the diagnosis. Those doctors don’t get blood and other bodily fluids on their clothes anymore, which is ironic because that is the point of the coat, instead they use their experiential knowledge and their prestige to spend their time learning about the less common problems and treatments for the human condition. Also there seems to be large amount of lab techs portrayed on television these days and whenever there is lab work to be accomplished one must don a lab coat. Lab work being seen as being less serious than administering a pill also ruins the mystique of the lab coat. Still for scrubs things are worse. A growing number of non-medical personnel wear scrubs, especially secretaries with little or no medical training. Why? Scrubs are cheap, comfortable, and disposable. I try to keep a pair around for doing dirty jobs.
http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Men/