Doctors go disturbingly long time without washing lab coats

It turns out the waiting room might not be the germiest part of the doctor's office.

A new study reveals that doctors' ties, jewelry and lab coats harbour harmful bacteria that could spread disease.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the infrequency at which doctors actually wash their lab coats and neckties -- once every 12 days on average for lab coats, only 70 per cent of physicians admitted to ever washing their neckties.

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The research, published in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, puts forth a new set of hygiene recommendations for doctors in a non-operating room setting.

The guidelines suggest that doctors, nurses and other health care workers should wear short sleeves and avoid wearing neckties, rings and watches. They also recommend that lab coats be washed in hot water and bleach at least once a week.

"There's a theoretical basis that if you have clean clothes, you have less chance of transmitting a pathogen," Dr. Gonzalo Bearman, co-author and epidemiologist at the Virginia Commonwealth University System, tells NBC.

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The researchers note that while no one has discovered a direct link between the germs on health worker clothing causing actual patient infections, they believe it is theoretically quite possible.

"We've not made the definitive link showing someone getting a hospital-acquired infection from the tip of someone's neck tie, but there's reason to suspect it could happen," Dr. Bearman tells USA Today.

Previous studies have found harmful bacteria -- such as Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas and Clostridium difficile -- on the ties, sleeves, pockets, coats and scrubs of health care workers.

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One study in particular found about a third of doctors' ties harbour Staphylococcus aureus bacteria -- and that up to 70 per cent of them admit to never cleaning them.

The concept of implementing a dress code among health care workers for infection control is nothing new. British health care workers are currently banned from wearing lab coats, watches, ties and sleeves below the elbow.

And recent evidence suggests that the stodgy old practice of doctors wearing lab coats has fallen out of favour in Canada and the U.S. -- with only one in eight U.S. doctors wearing a white lab coat.