Doctors lament attacks on personalized caps

Retired anesthetist Dr. Glenn Gibson believes he was an early trendsetter in slipping on brightly coloured cloth caps before heading into the operating room.

So he was a bit disappointed when some hospitals started to ban the cloth protective headwear, which allow doctors to show a little personality.

“I like cloth OR caps. I got tired of wearing the plain green ones, so about 25 years ago I started making my own ... with ridiculous colours and designs that nobody would buy,” said Gibson, who estimates he had about four dozen at one point.

A recent edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons suggests that freshly laundered cloth operating room hats are better at controlling microbial shed than the disposal showercap style “bouffant” hats that many hospitals have been forcing staff to wear in the name of infection control.

For many, the publication was cause for celebration.

Some operating room staff have long complained that the dispos- able bouffant caps are hot, make it hard to hear people, and reduce the little bit of personality available in a place where all staff wear the same scrubs.

Many also grumbled that the evidence that resulted in banning cloth hats was weak and that disposable bouffant caps create a lot of garbage.

“The cloth cap ban did generate some debate, some of which centred on evidence-based medicine (or lack of it) and some of which was likely vanity driven,” said cloth cap fan Dr. Lesley Barron, a general surgeon in Georgetown, Ont.

Some have argued that personalized caps — featuring cartoons, favourite team logos or festive scenes — can also improve patient care by decreasing pre-operative anxiety.

“You can chat about your hat while (the patients) are going off to sleep,” said Barron.

But Molly Blake, president of Infection Prevention and Control Canada, is not quite as enthusiastic.

She highlighted the main caveat of the study: that reusable cloth caps need to be regularly washed.