A "professional"/corporate look

In the corporate and professional world today there seems to be a common thread of uncertainty as regards how a "professional" woman should dress.   The whole thing has become a bit confusing to say the least.  (Photo of Joan Collins from her book "My Secrets" in a typical "professional" look for any woman in the workplace ).

In the world of the health professional for instance, no longer do staff wear "uniform" clothing that indicates their role within the hospital scene.  For instance, all nursing staff including specialists, doctors and nurses, now wear ordinary "street clothing".   Nothing wrong with that you might think, but it's difficult enough for the patient to know who they're speaking to, let alone families and friends of patients.   So you ask a question that only a specialist will have the answer for, and you're told, "well I don't know I'm only the medical clerk".   The staff MAY feel more comfortable dressed outside the constraints of a "uniform", but it certainly can stress the patient and or family of the patient in not knowing whether they're talking to someone who has medical knowledge or as happened to me recently, another visitor, who LOOKED like a nurse but wasn't!   She had no idea what I was talking about, and I was left a bit embarrassed that I had made a "gaff".

The fact that a lot of nursing staff wander around the wards in every-day clothing is all very nice, but somewhere or another they seem to have lost their "image" as far as visitors to the hospital are concerned.   For me, dealing with nursing staff who look as though they've just run a four minute mile and are dressed in sweat pants and tops with sneakers (and usually sneakers that need a bit of a clean-up) is a bit depressing.   Or am I being discriminatory in my own way?

I'll talk about other professions a little later ........

.....© Leonie Stevens