Editorial: Is a ‘mini’ uniform code just skirting around the issues?

A news report from 2008, freely available as a YouTube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj4IGDbRZvc), claims that nursing staff working in a hospital in Spain are incentivised to wear a ‘miniskirt’ as part of their uniform dress code. Greg Gutfeld, presenter of the American Fox News Red Eye programme, explains that nurses in the Clinica San Rafael hospital in Cadiz will not receive their monthly bonus of 30 Euros if they choose to wear trousers instead of a ‘miniskirt’. The host asks his studio guests and viewers at home in exasperation: ‘Who could possibly be against this dress code?’ One of the panellists, conveniently a male physician turned comedian, responds with temerity: ‘If the nurses had dressed in ‘miniskirts’ when I was a doctor, I would still be a doctor’. ‘Is it possible’, ponders the host ‘that attractive nurses in short skirts might lift the spirits of patients thus increasing their chances of getting better?’ A female panellist, cantering past the evidence base, supports his claim saying, ‘You know what, I believe that every woman no matter what size or shape has something to flaunt, especially the Latina women, they have big butts’. Concluding rather unscientifically but nevertheless very cheerfully she rallies nurses everywhere to ‘Wear the miniskirts and save some lives!’