Enclothed Cognition

This season's best lab coats for men represent a vast improvement over most of the lab coats available on the market today. Gone are the days of flimsy, ill-fitting coats with abrasive fabric that stains easily. The next generation of lab coats are now here to stay, featuring impeccably hand-sewn seams and superior quality fabric that not only resists stains but resembles something more akin to a tailored suit blazer rather than a lab coat. Here are our favorite styles for men this year:

1. Laennec Men's 40" Lab Coat. This lab coat is built for the modern health care professional looking for an updated appearance while on the job. It's the standard size for most male physicians and a favorite among most Medelita-mens customers.
2. Osler Men's 44" Lab Coat. The Men's Osler Lab Coat is the ultimate display of prestige and aptitude for healthcare professionals. It includes five pockets, including one for a normal iPad or any other device.
3. Fauchard Men's 40" Dental Lab Coat. The only lab coat that has it all - snap buttons, cuffed sleeves, ergonomic fit to allow maximum forward pronation, and a high collar for superior protection.
4. Fleming Men's 30" Student Lab Coat. This men's consultation lab coat is perfectly suited to make an impression before, during, and after the white coat ceremony. It is by far the most impressive student lab coat available in the industry today.

Feel free to browse the full list of men's lab coats by Medelita at the Medelita Men's Lab Coats Page.

As our customers surely know by now, we have been making every effort to outfit our lab coats with pockets that are large enough and reinforced to comfortably carry an iPad while at work.

It is with great pleasure that we are able to announce that October 6th - October 12th, 2012 as official Physician Assistant Week in San Clemente, California where Medelita is located. At a meeting with San Clemente's Mayor Jim Evert and the San Clemente City Council, Lara Francisco, PA-C and Founder of Medelita said in a speech to commemorate the occasion, “It’s an honor to promote the PA profession, and National PA Week is an important time to recognize the critical role of PAs working in all medical and surgical specialties." Mayor Jim Evert, whose own daughter works in medicine, emphasized the importance of PAs in the city's numerous public and private healthcare offices and facilities. He also commended the work of Lara Francisco, PA-C who founded a steadily growing business built and currently operating out of one of San Clemente's burgeoning office and commercial centers that caters directly towards increasing the quality of professional life for her colleagues in the PA profession. Lara was presented a plaque (pictured) that states the following:

WHEREAS: Quality, affordable and accessible patient-centered health care, provided by skilled practitioners, contributes to the well-being and quality of life for all citizens of our community; and

WHEREAS: Physician Assistants (PAs) are academically and clinically, trained and licensed to provide patient-centered health care services in partnership with physicians, including examinations, diagnosis, treatment, therapy, and preventive healthcare services, in addition to prescribing medications; and

WHEREAS: Physician Assistants are valuable assets to the medical community, as they work with physicians to expand access to the delivery of high-quality health care for patients, and do so with a level of care that research has shown to be comparable to the quality of care provided by physicians for similar services; and

WHEREAS: Physician Assistants have earned the respect and appreciation of the general public for their skill, dedication and contribution to people’s lives, working in partnership with the health care team to ensure delivery of efficient and effective health care services at a time when the nation is experiencing a shortage of primary care doctors and an aging population has increased the demand for health care services;

THEREFORE, I, JIM EVERT, Mayor of the City of San Clemente, California, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the laws of the City of San Clemente, California, do hereby proclaim the Week of October 6th through October 12th, 2012, as PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT WEEK IN SAN CLEMENTE, CALIFORNIA throughout the city, and I urge my fellow citizens to join me in recognizing PAs for the significant impact they have made and continue to make as critical members of our health care teams.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the City of San Clemente, California to be affixed this 6th day of October, 2012.

Jim Evert, Mayor

By Michele Shermak, MD Reprinted from Young Plastic Surgeons Perspective, April 2003 Plastic Surgery News.Despite exuberant clinical exposure during plastic surgery training, important practical issues related to day-to-day practice as an attending may not be addressed, particularly for private practice situations.

Medelita is a unique company in that it sells directly to customers on the internet and typically does not sell through other stores. We do this for a very good reason: we want to maintain full control over the quality of our garments and how they are presented in the marketplace.

I had worked the overnight shift in Peds ER at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens, and was driving home to my apartment in lower Manhattan.

I recently visited with my mentor, Dr. Pinkel, and had the privilege of hearing his stories about the inception of St. Jude Children's Hospital, a place that has changed the lives of millions. He tells me about getting cards from his patients who now have their own grandchildren! The pride in his voice and love for his patients, even those he had fifty years ago, is so obvious. He is 87 years old this year, suffers from post-polio syndrome (he nearly died from the disease as a resident), and won't be around forever, I know. I am so pleased to hear these stories, and share them here.

Danny Thomas recruited Dr. Pinkel to be the medical director of St. Jude, as he had started a pediatric cancer center where he had done his residency, in Buffalo, NY. He refused. He didn't want to move to Memphis, and Memphis didn't want the hospital there anyway. Danny continued to call him, and he finally accepted the job after receiving some advice from his own mentor: "You're young. If it flops, you can always do something else." Don Pinkel accepted the job under two conditions. The first was that the hospital would accept all patients, regardless of ability to pay. The second was that it would be fully racially integrated, from the patients all the way up to senior staff. A pretty controversial demand, for a Southern state in 1959.

As I sit talking to him, his wife, also a pediatric hematologist/oncologist, tells me she is preparing to go to Memphis for the 50th anniversary gala to represent him as he is unable to travel now. The gala, which many celebrities attend, is to celebrate the hospital's first opening it's doors in 1962, and is specifically honoring the first five medical directors, of which Dr. Pinkel is the first. He tells me in detail about the other four, who is still living, who is coming to represent each. He tells me about the influential researchers he recruited to come to Memphis, how he wouldn't get off the phone with one young man- for seven hours- until he agreed to come. How another man, a virology researcher, was eager to come to Memphis and study cancer after losing his wife at age 34 to a particularly virulent breast cancer. (At the time, they thought ALL came from a viral source mutating DNA. Keep in mind how new of an idea DNA was in the late 1950s).

I am amazed by this history. I'm laughing at his mentor's comment, that if it flops, he can always do something else- knowing the global presence of St. Jude's in 2012. The thought that a virus caused leukemia. The realization of how significant racial integration was at this time. Everything he said, fit into the framework of today, realizing how different our framework might be had he done something else with his life.

And I secretly wish I could go to the gala to represent him too, because I am so proud of him. And also to meet Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston. I just know we'd be friends.

Medelita Guest Blogger: Dr. Anne Kennard. Anne is an OB/GYN resident in Phoenix. She has kept a collection of writings about medicine/becoming a doctor since her second year of medical school, and we’re honored to welcome her as a guest blogger for Medelita.

We're very proud of our Lucy H.T. Dental Lab Coat. Named after the pioneer dentist and "the woman who pulls teeth," Lucy Hobbs Taylor, the 34? length lab coat is designed specifically to accommodate the exact range of motion and ergonomics required of dental practitioners. The Lucy H.T. dental lab coat features cuffed sleeves and snap closure. As well as being OSHA compliant, the snaps are preferred over buttons by most female dentists and hygienists who wear their coat closed. In addition to the DuPont™ Advanced Dual Action Teflon® fabric protector applied to the 100% cotton performance fabric, the ribbed cuffs of the Lucy H.T. also feature stain technology. This repel technology by DuPont prevents fluid, soil, and stains (including blood and impression material) from seeping into the fabric, ensuring that your lab coat and your cuffs remain white and clean. Enhancing the ergonomic design of the Lucy H.T. dental lab coat, we introduced additional shaping to the sleeves that replicates a true position of function and prevents any tension at the elbow. This very slight adjustment to the sleeves ensures added comfort during procedures and improved durability long-term. With a slimming back waist-band, beautiful rounded pocket detail, finished inside seams, and softly rounded collar – the Lucy H.T. lab coat is ideal for any female dentist or dental surgeon. Enter today for your chance to win a FREE Lucy H.T. Dental Lab Coat for Women by Medelita - complete with complimentary Name & Title Embroidery. Enter the contest here, and be sure to share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.

"She carried herself like a ramrod. Little old woman she was not. She was a grenadier." Katherine Dexter McCormick (1875 – 1967) was a U.S. biologist, suffragist, and philanthropist. She was the second woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in 1904) and the first woman to receive a science degree from MIT (major in biology). Katherine had originally planned to attend medical school, but her plans were postponed when she married Stanley McCormick, heir to the International Harvester fortune. Two years into the marriage, Stanley developed schizophrenia and was soon lost to dementia. He was declared legally incompetent in 1909—only five years after their wedding. Katherine turned her attention then to philanthropy and actively pursued the role of women’s rights activist. She became vice president and treasurer of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and organized much of the efforts to gain ratification for the Nineteenth Amendment. She firmly believed that a woman's right to control her body was as important as her right to vote, and it was during her suffragist days that she met with legendary birth control activist Margaret Sanger - for whom Katherine smuggled diaphragms into the US during the 1920s. In the 1950s, when the United States government, medical institutions and the pharmaceutical industry wanted nothing to do with controversial contraceptive research, Katherine McCormick (at age 75!) singlehandedly funded the development of the first oral contraceptive pill. She gave approx. $2 million to the research of Gregory Goodwin Pincus, a scientist that had been working on hormonal methods of birth control, and she took an active role in the development of the Pill. When the Pill came on the market in 1960, the scientists and doctors involved in developing it were thrust into the spotlight for their contribution to science. Katherine McCormick was a footnote in the coverage, yet she deserves credit for her dedication and contribution to what The New York Times called the “most sweeping sociomedical revolution in history. . . [whose] impact on the United States and other nations [is] almost too vast to analyze.” Her other philanthropic efforts included the establishment of the Neuro-Endocrine Research Foundation at Harvard Medical School, a $5 million dollar donation to Planned Parenthood, and a $1 million dollar donation to Worcester Hospital for a research and care facility for the mentally ill. In addition, she supported women’s education at MIT by donating money to build the Stanley McCormick Hall – the first all female dormitory at MIT. Katherine also donated $5 million to the Stanford School of Medicine for the encouragement and assistance of women pursuing the study of medicine and biomedical research.

Not everyone knows that we offer custom logo embroidery - a service of which we are extremely proud. Our very talented embroidery artist, David, builds every custom logo from scratch using a base image file. Applying his decade of experience, David pays extreme attention to each and every order. One of our recent custom logos was designed for the Dept. of Emergency Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in nearby Los Angeles, California. Harbor-UCLA is a public teaching hospital that is well known for its academic excellence and commitment to disadvantaged communities in Los Angeles. The hospital is funded by the County of Los Angeles and serves as one of the main teaching hospitals for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. David's biggest challenge in creating this logo lay in maintaining a clear level of detail without cluttering the design. "If you put too many stitches into fabric, it'll bunch up and look bad so I had to balance the stitching to look great without overpowering the fabric," says David - who absolutely loved the challenge presented by this logo. Do you think your logo could provide a welcome challenge for our embroidery artist? If you have any questions about custom logo embroidery or group orders, we’re here to help. Contact us at 877-987-7979 or email us at contact.us@medelita.com.