Chronicle 13 : Women Dilemma Part 2

Continued from Part 1

We had a dean for OSHA and related personnel safety at NYU. He toured the school and picked on students who were not upto standards. Many students hated him! We ran and hid in the nooks and crannies if we were not following proper protocol. While it was fun and exciting tricking him then, what he said keeps ringing in my ears all the time. After graduation, I am on my own and I can trick nobody!

Having open hair always is very presentable but not when treating a patient. The patients do not relish the idea of the doctor’s hair falling into their mouths!  Many students did make an extra effort to gel their hair and still have them open (less chances of hair mishaps) and others just tied up and saved the trouble. There still were ones who worked with their hair loose and almost caught fire fabricating dentures!

With all these observations, I have decided to opt for either scrubs with sports shoes or full pants with socks and ballerina shoes for work. I always have to wear a fully sleeved coat to protect my hands and tie up my hair most of the times for work. I have had bad hair days and disheveled ones too! It is very challenging for women to strike a balance with being presentable, compete with peer pressure and be professional all at the same time. But women do excel with all these limitations. There is no set rule and there is a very fine line that can be drawn here to enforce safety rules for women. But most of them know and can realize whats best for their safety.

Interestingly, men have a better chance with these injuries. Most of them wear full sleeved shirts for school and they have formal shoes on. So the body is fully clothed and protected. They have short hair and less hair fall chances and fire mishaps. They could get up disheveled and still come to school or work because they can brush their hair in a jiffy! Peer pressure demands some deodorant and that’s workable. No skin showing for men, so life can be less complicated. The patients don’t seem to prejudice the maturity of men based on clothing. I am sure men have their qualms too. If I were to be a man, I would think differently from the other perspective?

Dr Meenakshi Umapathy is a General Dentist who graduated from India. She moved to the USA and completed her DDS from New York University College of Dentistry. She is currently practicing General Dentistry for Kids in Indiana. She shares her stories about  dentistry in India and the US through her narratives at the DentistryUnited every Saturday

Disclaimer : The views expressed in this blog are solely the views of the author and need not reflect the views of  DentistryUnited.com . For any clarification you can get in touch with the author directly at the address mentioned above.

Chronicle 13 : Women Dilemma

Part 1

The first time I started dental school, I was happy about the fact that there were many women in the class.  I was glad that I was getting into a profession that was more women friendly. I was very thrilled that so many women thought this was a profession where they could make a mark.  Interestingly, women whatever profession they are in, have to adapt and change. Women always have to multitask- they need to be doctors but also be pretty ones. They have to appear and talk more mature than their men colleagues. Many mothers who multitask have to rush all the times and still look very presentable.

I saw and imbibed a few changes when I was in dental school in my country and in dental school in this new land. Back home, when I first started, Salwaar kameez was the most commonly worn dress for most occasions. So, it was the dress for school as well. Many women were and are still comfortable wearing this dress for work. This dress, though comfortable, came in various designs. But very few wore them full sleeved. The white coat for dental students were half sleeved and with a short sleeved or sleeveless salwaar kameez, these women were never protected from body fluids and needle pricks when treating a patient. The most complementing shoes with this dress were sandals or open toed shoes. There again, the chances of injury doubled in a new student’s perspective. What if a sharp instrument fell and injured the foot?

Saree day was very common in India. Women wore ethnic traditional wear on certain days to work. I remember that at that age, I was still new to saree and I struggled to even walk with that 7 yard cloth wrapped around me! It was a socially accepted thing that women who wear a saree were more traditional and more mature. They were more respected among the Indian patients. But little did these patients realize that their doctor was thinking more about her dress unwrapping and embarrassing her when walking or her beautiful dress getting ruined by blood stains! I could not find the foot pedal under that drape of clothing and did not realize if I was pressing on the right one most of the time. If I remember correctly, half of my friends did not work on patients on saree days!

In the US, once I started school, I was always wondering if women had a common dress code. The laws were more set in place that the body should be fully protected. Most women just opted for scrubs, the most widely and safest clothing option for men and women. But some including me opted for formal and semiformal clothing. The formal and semi formal clothing had to follow some standards: Cover and protect the body fully. Women found it easy to follow that rule in winter because they had no other option. They were double layered from head to toe! Fully covered shoes, pants or stocking for legs and fully sleeved shirts were very common. Come summer, things changed. Peer pressure demanded some skin being shown! Then came the hidden skirts from closets with ballerina shoes. Stockings were supposed to be worn with the skirts but were missing on many. I always thought it was a hindrance to wear them.

To be continued in Part 2

Dr Meenakshi Umapathy is a General Dentist who graduated from India. She moved to the USA and completed her DDS from New York University College of Dentistry. She is currently practicing General Dentistry for Kids in Indiana. She shares her stories about  dentistry in India and the US through her narratives at the DentistryUnited every Saturday

Disclaimer : The views expressed in this blog are solely the views of the author and need not reflect the views of  DentistryUnited.com . For any clarification you can get in touch with the author directly at the address mentioned above.