Enclothed Cognition

Suleman Bhana, MD, Michael Laccheo, MD, and Paul Sufka, MD recently reviewed the Laennec iPad lab coat by Medelita on May 9, 2013 edition of their podcast, The Rheumatology Podcast, "Episode 11 - SLICC lupus criteria and a better white coat."

We have been witnessing an impressive surge in demand for Medelita lab coats and scrubs outside of the United States, but it's been a complicated and somewhat frustrating experience for customers who reside in countries that require additional payments for duties and taxes on the packages they receive from Medelita.

In today's article featured on the Harvard Business Review's Leading Health Care Innovation insight center, "Understanding the Drivers of the Patient Experience," authors James I. Merlino and Ananth Raman discuss a few innovations in approaches to patient satisfaction.

One of our Mid-Atlantic customers contacted us in the spring with a great idea – to surprise their ten Physician Assistants with embroidered Medelita lab coats for PA Day on October 6^th.  It was very thoughtful of them to start planning for their surprise so far in advance, and we are happy to actualize this perfect gift for all of our customers this month.  It’s not at all too late - there is still time to surprise your PAs with an embroidered Medelita lab coat or scrub set that reflects your appreciation of their hard work and dedication. As a Physician Assistant, Medelita founder Lara Francisco, PA-C, felt that the traditionally boxy, frumpy, unisex scrubs and lab coats worn everyday by hundreds of thousands of clinicians provided a poor visual correlation to the level of education and prestige of those working in the medical professions.  Her goal to upgrade the quality, fit and performance of lab coats and scrubs, as well as design gender specific styles, has created a paradigm shift in the medical uniform industry. With PA day only a month away, we are offering guaranteed delivery by October 4^th on any embroidered gift order placed by September 16^th, for delivery in the continental U.S.. Gift orders placed without embroidery can be placed by September 30^th for guaranteed delivery by October 4^th.  Garments without embroidery can also be returned for complimentary embroidery at your convenience. Lara recalls her days working as a PA in the ER, and feels that PA Day is often over-looked by supervisors and administrative personnel,  "I encourage all practices that employ PAs to be pro-active during PA Week.  Educate patients as to the valuable role of the PA, participate in community PA Day activities and educational forums, and/or do something especially nice to show appreciation toward the PAs that add value to your practice and to so many patients’ lives."

It’s a small world - we’ve all heard it before - but it is especially true now with the speed of information sharing.  Medelita’s customer base for lab coats and scrubs continually grows both domestically and internationally, and we are constantly improving the international shipping experience. Some of the hardest international customer service questions are related to where the package is, or surprise at the tariffs and duties levied by the local governments.   While we can often help with the former, we currently cannot help with the latter (but we are working on it).  Duties on foreign goods are a fact we all live with for the moment.   It is a price we pay for getting something really extraordinary that we are unable to find locally. There are three helpful hints that I’ve learned about successful international shipping: 1)     Medelita’s website has a helpful shipping calculation tool to provide shipping costs prior to checkout:  //www.medelita.com/international.html 2)     The shipping address should be the location where you will be during business hours, not necessarily your home.  Unlike domestic shipping, international shipments require payment of duties and taxes before the package can be delivered.  The customer must be available to a UPS agent to address these requirements before they can obtain their package; 3)     UPS worldwide expedited shipping is virtually as quick as domestic, so think about your schedule, will you be on vacation next week?  If so, wait until you return to place your order.  Because once the package ships, it is very expensive for you (if not impossible for us) to reroute it or get it back. Keeping these thoughts in mind will go a long way to ensuring your garments arrive safely into your hands in virtually the same time frame as if you were only one state away.  It is one of the many miracles of our modern, small, world.

As the U.S. population grows older, demand for all physician specialties is rising dramatically across the country. The Association of American Medical Collegesestimates that the U.S. will face a shortage of more than 90,000 physicians by 2020 and 130,000 by 2015.

Adding personalized embroidery to our lab coats is as second nature to us a signing our names. Every day we process orders with a little as one embroidered lab coat to over one thousand lab coats with logo embroidery.

Every once in a while we receive unsolicited messages like these that help to put all of our hard work into perspective and in Mary's case, it simply makes us smile knowing that our colleagues understand exactly the unique service we're attempting to provide.

This year 99.4% of the 29,171 available medical residency positions at major U.S. teaching hospitals were filled. We’d like to help you with another "match.'

Baggy and unisex medical scrubs have not truly evolved in years. Brands may introduce new colors, new prints, and new pockets - but true innovation has been lacking. Our founder, an emergency medicine physician assistant specializing in pediatrics, found trend unacceptable.