Slashdot Mirror
Doctors' Neckties Transmit Germs
bzipitidoo writes "Real geeks don't wear neckties, and maybe the rest of the world wishes they didn't have to. Ties had a minor comeback with the recent bad job market, but hopefully that's behind us. Apart from the obvious that neckties are uncomfortable, useless, in-the-way, and therefore a waste of time and money, too-tight ties constrict blood vessels and
raise eye fluid pressure which increases the risk of blindness. Now there's a new study showing that
doctors' neckties transmit germs. One suggested remedy from the article is tie condoms."
i for one rather enjoy wearing ties -- especially when its for no real reason. i feel it gives my day a sense of importance or note; you know it just spices things up. im fond of the formality which i feel (fear even) is rapidly declining in our culture. what to substitute this with? any ideas?
...make sure you always use protection when seeking the advice of a medical professional.
dtach - A tiny program that emulates the detach feat
The artical aside, I love neck ties, I have 17, ranging from Star Trek to the molecular structure of Scotch to a maroon one with a flower embroidered to a portrait of Einstein. Unlike starched shirts and ironed pants, a tie is a chance for self expression in the otherwise bland world of corprate attire. They're especillay cool if they're stolen, as you're then you're flaunting your rebellion through conformity.
Yet another signature that refers to itself. The irony and humor is dead.
One suggested remedy from the article is tie condoms.
;)
And would those be "ribbed for her pleasure"? My suggested remedy from the article is to close the browser window and try to forget the whole thing.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Ties had a minor comeback with the recent bad job market, but hopefully that's behind us.
Clearly, you must be living in India.
Apart from the obvious that neckties are uncomfortable, useless, in-the-way
Useless? And what exactly do you plan to cover your shirt buttons with if not a tie? I don't wear ties and I never will. Period. I'll wear a dress shirt on occasion but unless I'm an executive, a tie is really overboard and hints at a tendancy to ass-kiss.
(Repost in non-anonymous mode -- oops!)
Ties had a minor comeback with the recent bad job market, but hopefully that's behind us.
Clearly, you must be living in India.
Apart from the obvious that neckties are uncomfortable, useless, in-the-way
Useless? And what exactly do you plan to cover your shirt buttons with if not a tie? I don't wear ties and I never will. Period. I'll wear a dress shirt on occasion but unless I'm an executive, a tie is really overboard and hints at a tendancy to ass-kiss.
Ties? Come on.
If you're going to needlessly worry about something, worry about the doctor's stethoscope. I'm a medical student, and I've never heard of people cleaning their stethoscopes unless the patient was on contact isolation. I have yet to sterilize mine. Why? It's just not terribly conducive to crap growing on it, and you never put it on open wounds or the like. Skin is a pretty damn good barrier to pathogens.
Also, if you want to worry about more stuff, worry about doctors washing their hands. It's unprofessional and a health risk not to, but it doesn't happen as much as it should with certain people. (I've shadowed GPs who washed their hands less than once per patient.) Many physicians trust Purell hand sanitizer, but some don't. There's a reason no surgeon would scrub in with Purell - they instead use iodine-based scrubbers, with plenty of mechanical scrubbing. Then two layers of gloves on top.
There are worse things than ties...
1) Dress clothes suck.
2) No matter how many times I am taught or teach myself, I cannot remember for the life of me how to tie a damn tie.
However, if you're going to wear a tie, I would recommend Lee Allison. They have several ties that would interest geeks. And, of course, every tie they make AFAIK has on the inside the words "remove before sex"; what's more geek that that?
Neckties are an absolutely useless piece of frippery for men who wish they could dress with the elegance and style of a woman, but are afraid to wear pretty dresses in public. Well, I say to all you hidden cross-dressers out there, give up your ties and dress as you truly wish! Just remember to shave your legs.
Getting tired of Slashdot... moving to Usenet comp.misc for a while.
I can imagine a lot of pen swapping goes on in hospitals between hospital staff who are actively interacting with patients. This must spread germs!
Pen condoms??!
I was going to mod you down, but a lot of people seem to be on your wavelength so I'm going to reply instead. Perhaps someone will enjoy the alternate viewpoint.
Your reasons to wear a tie seem to be based around a dubious ethic of climbing the corporate ladder based on appearance rather than merit, then picking up the sort of classy lady who is mesmerised by business neckwear. Since I lost the tie I am doing way better in both departments.
Wouldn't it be better for everyone if success was earned on the basis of merit / quality rather than their shiny veneer? Think of (for example) successful software versus its less successful, higher quality alternatives. Or politicians. Or people in your workplace. Or whatever.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Yet another good reason not to wear a tie to the office :-)
Ah Geek fashion so important.
You aren't asked to know about colour co-ordination all you are asked to do is figure out what a suit means and choose a tie for a simple purpose but geeks neglect this simple thing. Sad really.
Look at a peacock and think about how much worse things could have gone for you, now spend twenty minutes looking at ties and analysing your emotions, you're done for life andif you know what you are doing you just gained a little power.
They do. I took a microbio class in college and one assignment was to take a swab of some object in everyday use and see what grows on a petri dish. Well, I chose the pen at the sign-in clipboard to the infermery. When we were looking at the slides we prepared from our cultures, my prof asked me what I had sampled. When I told her she became very upset, especially when she looked at my slide and saw many gram-negative cocci, of which she was afraid that I had grown meningitis. My culture was promptly destroyed.
It's interesting that the neckties were the cause for concern, but not the shirts or the belts. I'm assuming that's because the neckties are not washed as regularly as another other item of clothing. Why not just throw the necktie into the washing machine along with the rest of the clothes?
I don't mind ties much. Despite what anyone might wish for or delude themselves about; people make shallow, subjective judgements about you every single minute of the day. You can fight it (to little avail) or you can make it work for you. A "corporate uniform" if anything insulates you from that. If you are really a strong enough person/personality, doing the suit/tie thing isn't going to compromise you as a person - you know who you are and you don't need someone else's approval for it (rrright?).
From an almost-ex-tie-wearer (don't often do it these days): Many of the 'best' ties are/were in silk, and were both non-washable and even hard to dryclean without losing shape. So most of them probably didn't/don't get washed or cleaned often, or maybe not at all.
Many hospital germs, including the most dangerous antibiotic-resistant MRSA, have been found transmitted in/on noses and hands of medical staff.
Some hospitals now have dispensers for alcohol hand-rub in each ward/department, for everybody to use on their hands when entering and leaving, and some tests seem to have shown these alcohol rubs to be the most effective thing yet against contagion.
Maybe tie-bags for medics are not such a bad idea to add to that.....
-wb-
In a discussion I had recently with a medical researcher, he claimed that there is solid research that pens are the number one vehicle for spreading germs around in hospitals.
pwned! The other reply was more interesting, though. Would have modded it up if my mod points hadn't expired today... Still pwned, though.
Lalala
The study was performed by the highly respected Doctors Who Don't Like to Dress Up Especially In the Summer Association of America.
Eat at Joe's.
My wife is a nurse in a local burn and trauma unit. When she first started nursing, she read an article where the researchers swabbed the wedding rings of nurses and found several kinds of nasties present on the inside of the ring (where it contacts the finger). I don't know if they did any sort of non-nurse ring testing to quantify if this was an issue only in medical environments or not, but ffter she read that, she started leaving her rings at home on workdays.
While an earlier post mentions that ties are perhaps the least washed article of clothing, the unanswered, and maybe unasked, question is: What about the rest of the suit or whatever else might be worn? Did they swab shirts and jackets to see what those held as well?
If it's just ties with high levels of pathogens, then ditching them makes medical sense. If it's any cloth the physician wears, then just getting rid of ties won't really have any effect. The 'tie condom' sounds silly, but really something like that goes on now with what surgeons wear for each procedure. Would it be that farfetched to have a physician change what would be pretty much an apron between examinations if it meant healthier patients?
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
It's called a "bow tie." Solves all those problems except the slow strangulation thingy.
If you're being strangled by your tie, it's on too tight.
BioChips, Bioelectronics cures cancer, AIDS. http://www.geocities.com/mathematician99/ Biological computer kills cancer cells http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15602
I think the quality of your shiney veneer is often indicative of your merit. If someone doesn't take pride in their appearance, it stands to reason that they might not take pride in their work either. Not always, but often enough.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
The air in doctors' offices can carry air vectored germs. All medical treatment should therefore be carried out in a vaccuum, preferably in orbit to prevent contamination of uncontaminated atmosphere.
Except that might infect space. Those germs might be able to survive in a vaccuum, and we'd be infecting the entire universe.
We are dirty dirty dirty and our planet should be sterilized so we don't kill the universe. Nuke us from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Some doctors, at least, are already aware of this pitfall and have taken steps against it. My father, for instance, always wears a tie tack in order to keep his tie from dangling down onto (or into) his patients. I had always sort of assumed that this was a basic part of medical hygiene. Apparently not. Given the extremely simple solution (assuming that wearing a tie tack is effective) this could easily become something of a non-issue.
You grew meningitis??
Meningitis is a medical condition characterized by inflammation of the meninges of the brain.
You can't grow meningitis on a petri dish just like you can't grow heart failure in a petri dish.
I'm guessing you grew a gram-negative bacteria like Hemophilus influenzae or Neisseria meningitidis.
Exactly, Neisseria Meningitidis, the bacteria that causes meningitis. If I had said Neisseria Meningitidis most people whould have been at a loss. It probably wasn't Hemophilus (a bacillus) because it was definatly a diplococcus.
Yeah, and his "definatly" didn't help any, either.
If ties have no utility value (they're too narrow to work as bibs anymore) and no aesthetic value, then all that's left is the message that they transmit. That goes back to your "You'll appear more professional" and related points.
The problem with that, was famously put into words by Hamlet's mom: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." Classy people don't say, "I'm classy." Cool people don't say, "I'm cool."
Unattractive, unutilitarian formalwear just raises my defenses. It doesn't make me think someone is "professional" (whatever that means; if someone wants my money, that's enough to convince me they're professional), it makes me think they're weaselly and trying to hide something.
To me, ties are just like tattoos and piercings. Those things often make me think, "You're going to an aweful lot of trouble to look 'cool' and nothing can be more uncool than that."
Maybe tattoos used to be cool. But now they're trendy and show what a sheep you are. Same with ties. The first tie wearers were expressing themselves. The ones that followed them, were followers. Poseurs.