Hygiene
It's not only looks that count, its the smells. When people are ill there sense of smell can be heightened, so not only be careful with perfume, but with tobacco smells and food smells. Don't cook in your uniform before you leave, for example fish has a strong smell. It's not only your patients you have to think about it may be a coworker that has sensitivities as well.
Tracee, you are right that strong smells affect others. The person may have become unaware they are wearing strong perfume or cooking smells.
Michele Deck
This is an excellent tool to use with beginning nursing students when we have to teach them about appearance and professional in the clinical and skiills lab settings. It also helps to have instructors dress in a professional manner as well. If students are not to be wearing hoop earrings then instructors should model this behavior.
As a nurse and a massage therapist, I stress to my students that hygiene is to be considered both on and off the job because you never know who is watching you. One's hygiene speaks volumes. Hygiene can build both selfconfidence as well as someone's confidence in you.
Tracee is absolutely correct when she states that patients' senses are heightened when they are ill. They are also more susceptible and reaction-oriented to distasteful odors that can cause them to experience signs of nausea, vomiting, headaches and other deteriorating conditions of poor health. Your perfume may smell great to you but in the long run, it is your patient you must be concerned with.
John Billingsley
