Hide The Backside: Maryland Hospital Testing Out More Dignified Gowns
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Derriere-bearing hospital gowns may soon be a thing of the past.
Patients at the MedStar Montgomery Medical Center in Olney are among the first to wear a new, less revealing style of gown being tested by the hospital group.
The gown is the result of a partnership between Parsons School of Design in Manhattan and "healthwear company" Care+Wear.
It is an "all-in-one, full coverage solution for patients," styled similarly to a kimono, Care+Wear says.
"It gives you terrific access, and the patient feels safe and protected and comfortable," according to Dr. Mark Smith, Chief Innovation Officer of MedStar Health and the Director of the MedStar Institute for Innovation.
"The current patient gown, with the ties in the back, reinforces a power imbalance between patients and caregivers," Smith said in a New York Times Style section piece about the gown published Jan. 3. "Patients get stripped of their sense of personhood, of their privacy."
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