It's official. It's not all white at Dunedin Hospital.
As signalled last month, medical students working at the hospital no longer have to wear white coats.
Clinical directors and leaders at the hospital agreed earlier there should be no absolute requirement for students to wear the white coats and this month the Dunedin School of Medicine's heads of department agreed.
School dean Dr John Adams said he did not think the decision would make an awful lot of difference.
"I don't think too many were still wearing them."
It is not known when the mandatory white coats were introduced for students, but they date back to at least the 1950s.
Dr Adams said today's students, as well as their hospital identification cards, were also required by the school to wear large name tags - white with blue lettering for fourth and fifth-year students and black with white lettering for trainee interns (sixth years).
