Alliance — Chances are you have a dress code at work.
But how much, really, does what you look like affect how well you do your job if you're saving lives?
Indiana University Health, the largest healthcare system in Indiana is among several across the country loosening up the dress code rules.
Their rulebook for 33,000 employees in 16 hospitals went from 50 pages to 5 pages.
Banned tattoos and piercings and “unnatural colored hair” were among some of the rules to go.
It's is happening right here in Northeast Ohio as well.
Our own WKYC photojournalist Jordan Miller helped spark the discussion with a Facebook post that went viral last July.
Misti Johnson is Jordan’s mom.
"Nursing is my heart. It's my passion," Johnson told Channel 3 News.
It’s a labor of love that Johnson wears on her sleeve, pointing out her stethoscope with a beating heart tattoo on her right arm.
Johnson’s tattoo sleeve runs in the family.
"We all have this one," Misti says, pointing to the one that reads “Family. Where life begins and love never ends"
Jordan has the same one.
He’s keepin’ it real when he says what he knows most people think when they see him and his mom.
"This can't be good. What gang are they from?" he says.
So Jordan stood up for his mom and for ALL nurses when he posted this on Facebook.
It reads in part,
"I've seen my mom pull a lady out of the car before it filled with smoke and she suffocates. I’ve seen my mom give someone stitches on the side of the road. Tattoos don’t define the person and they certainly shouldn’t define the person able to save your life”
“I woke up the next day and saw it was going viral! OMG! 1 post!" Johnson laughs.
"Then we started to get phone calls from all over the country," Jordan adds.
A year later that post has almost 200,000 likes and 125,000 shares and it’s part of the changing face of healthcare across the country.
Indiana University Health calls it “a move away from being a rules driven organization to one that is culture based”.
“We want you to bring your whole self to work while maintaining a professional image,” says Michelle Janney, chief nurse executive of IU Health.
“WE know that many of our caregivers had tattoos that they were hiding and that just didn’t feel genuine to us. Actually what we are saying is use good judgment and we trust you,” says Janney.
Restrictions on tattoos, piercings and hair color are also being lifted at places like Akron Select Specialty Hospital where Misti Johnson is a critical care nurse.
A nurse who graduated valedictorian.
The kind of nurse you WANT to help physically heal your body.
"I gave it my all. I didn't know I was going to graduate top of my class but I worked hard. I raised 3 kids as a single parent. I got out of a domestic violence situation when I was in LPN school and never looked back," Johnson says.
Her powerful real life story can be a healing prescription of sorts for patient’s souls as well.
"The ones who are struggling in their own lives, to hear someone else had been down a rough road, my tattoos are just another way to break the ice," says Johnson.
"I mean ink is ink. My tattoos are just a part of me. I wear mine and I wear them proudly," Johnson says pointing to another on her right arm that reads “Life is like photography we DEVELOP from the NEGATIVE".
"My negative would be my domestic violence I got out of, Misti explains.
Instead of letting it define her, Misti worked it into the fabric that IS her story she wears on her sleeve.
“I look at it every day to realize where I was and where I am now and to remind me to never go back," Johnson says, affirming a real life acquired wisdom beyond the book smarts of a Valedictorian.
"It's my canvas and I wear it proudly," Johnson says.
A bit of an overachiever, Misti also teaches nurses of the future at her alma matter, Robert T. White School of Nursing in Alliance.
"I just keep trying to teach and mold them to think like you are taking care of your mom. Because in the end we ARE taking care of someone’s mom, someone’s kid or grandkid. So you take care of them like you would take care of your own," Johnson says.
Johnson’s students learn from her ink and even more by her example.
“Nursing is my heart. It’s my passion. Some people are in it for the check. I’m in it because I actually truly care about your loved ones. Their recovery and their families as well.
Misti is a living example of a universal message, really.
DON'T.
JUDGE.
In a day and age marked by less empathy, more anger, just imagine…
"If we can get away from judging people and instead really look at them for who they are, this world would be a much better place," Johnson says.
We, are much better people, Jordan and I agree, for just having known her.
