I gave a great deal of thought to my "uniform" when I switched from staff nurse to LC. I wear street clothes with a V-neck scrub jacket over the top. (They look like cotton blazers with pizzazz.) One of the nurses actually said to me, "I like the way you dress, you look like you're a cut above, but also one of the team. I can ask you to help in a pinch but not to take over unless you change work codes as well as work clothes!" Nobody here wears lab coats except lab people! The one drawback to this system is that I almost always buy print coats so I wear a lot of boring pants-and-shirts outfits. It is cost efficient however! The other thing that has brought "respect" is the flurry of initials painted next to my office door. I didn't put all my initials out there, but all sorts of people say, "I saw your office! Boy, I didn't realize you had that many initials after your name." (We all know that LLLL is one of the most important sets I don't have up there -- playing the game like Dr. Jay! -- and I also write IBCLC whenever I document, even if I just emptied a Foley to be helpful.) Dawn Kersula RN, IBCLC, FACCE Brattleboro Memorial Hospital - 360 births a year! (and still doing normal births) *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html