Im currently about to enter my freshman year at the University of Michigan. I look forward to taking the MCAT and attending med school, but I also love having tattoos and piercings. I’m sure I’ll grow out of the piercings and will have them out by the time I attend med school, and the tattoos that I currently have are hidden because I know that I’ll have to be in a professional workplace in the future. I have had many difficulties in my life, even contemplating committing suicide multiple times, and I wanted to get a semicolon tattooed on the inside of my wrist in order to remind myself that I have survived and can keep going farther. Do you think that if I were to get this tattoo, it would hinder my chances at being hired at a hospital in the future? I’m sure it could be very easy to cover up, whether with a hair tie, bracelet, or makeup. I just figured that since it’s a tattoo that isn’t necessarily flashy or provocative, while also having a deep meaning to me, it wouldn’t be such a huge deal.
There have been many threads on tattoos before, notably in the Parents forums. You will essentially get three responses: (1) It doesn’t matter; (2) It does matter; and (3) It shouldn’t matter. My take is that a visible tattoo will cause some people to have a more negative opinion of you.
Keep 'em hidden.
Medicine is inherently a very conservative profession. No visible tattoos or facial piercings.
D1 has 2 tattoos. Neither are visible when wearing professional dress or scrubs.
Perhaps you could get it on/near your foot instead? Like a “I got up and kept going” kind of thing.
I do thank you all for your input. I understand where you’re all coming from. I wasn’t going to for sure get the tattoo until I knew what the situation would be like. I am also even willing to wait until I see how the future plays out before getting the tattoo, or do as somebody else suggested and just get it in a hidden place. Either that, or I’m willing to get the tattoo small enough on my wrist to where it’ll be easily covered whenever I’m working.
Wrist tattoos on medical personnel tend to be seen.
“Either that, or I’m willing to get the tattoo small enough on my wrist to where it’ll be easily covered whenever I’m working.”
If you feel you have to cover it in the workplace, why not just go and get it in a place that is pretty much always covered? (your hip, etc.) It seems silly to get something that you want to be visible and yet then want to have the ability to cover it up. Covering up a wrist tattoo is hard.
If you’re willing to cover the tattoo at all, I agree that you’re better off going somewhere never visible at work. I was about to say forearm but if you might end up in a surgical field then you’ll have to expose your forearms during scrubbing. That might still be ok since the issue is more like job interview/patient interaction setting where your sleeves will be longer but something above the elbows (e.g. bicep, chest) or on your lower body will always be hidden at work.
put it exactly where your watch hits.
Except no one wears a watch anymore–including young doctors.
(I have a med student and newly graduated physician; nether one wears a watch, even during patient clinics. I know this because I keep trying to give them watches and they have repeatedly refuse because they won’t need one/don’t want one.)
A watch is difficult to wear if you are constantly washing your hands and/or gloving up as people in the health professions tend to do.
This is silly. Instead of making all these inefficient workarounds required to cover it up, just get it in a private place. There. Done. Why make it difficult on yourself? Why have one more thing to think about?
Get it on your foot or something. My mom’s boss has a tattoo on her foot. She’s not in medicine, but it seems to have worked out okay for her.