The Queen St Mall is littered with businessmen wearing open neck shirts, jackets slung over their shoulders and sweat pouring down their brow. Meantime, as I've mentioned, the Qld Metro Hospitals are chocablock with tie-clad physicians, despite the tropical heat outside. There seems and odd irony about it; it seems that the the sweltering bankers and lawyers walk relaxedly between appointments, whilst the strangulated clinicians melt on sun-bleached wards.

The irony is all the more thicker when you consider that although office-based movers and shakers usually have more influence in the area of fashion and the 'professional' look, the health professions are supposed to excel in, well, health.


Ties bad for your health? Well, not so much the wearer as their patients. Quite a few of studies, of varying strengths, have shown that clothing worn on the wards accumulates all manner of bacteria, which can be then spread to patients. The tie, in particular, is of such a loose, flappy, dangly nature, it can't help but waft around the patient. Where shirts are washed between wears, ties are not generally subject to such stringent laundering. Basically, they're dirty, is all I'm saying. And if your patients get C. diff because you just had to wear a Piano-Key tie, well that's more tragic than the throat-garb itself.

In short, ties suck. They are barely fashionable in tropical climes, unnecessary when it comes to conveying a 'professional' appearance, impractical for physical examinations and they're a haven for infectious organisms in transit. As two UK surgeons nicely surmise;