The overused line is that the eyes are the windows to the soul. But, what do eyes really tell us?

   Most do not look into the eyes of another long enough to discern much. As Ralph Ellison's protagonist says so bitterly, “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."

   The horrors of racial bias have always been tragic. The recent emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement has challenged everyone. Ignorance from many white people blocked them from seeing the point: In a nation still dominated by whites, black lives have mattered less for centuries & remain minimized to this day. 

  The issue is far broader, of course. Every minority is degraded by either not being seen or viewed as "less than." A decade ago I discovered that younger people were looking through me because my white hair signaled I was irrelevant. All you have to do is visit a typical nursing home to see that old people matter less.

  If you have worn a patient gown you know that the moment healthy eyes caught sight of you, you felt marginalized. 

   During my twelve years a head of Riverside Methodist Hospital and OhioHealth we strove to redesign the gown until we finally discovered something. It was not the gown. It was what people's eyes told them when they saw it. 

   We needed to train caregivers & visitors that the most important uniform in a hospital is not a doctor's scrubs or an executive's suit. It is the patient gown.

   When I had the power to do so I should have hung a giant picture at each of our hospital's entrances entitled: "The Most Important Uniform in the Hospital." Inside the frame, a patient gown. 

-Erie Chapman