MIAMI, Nov. 20 — When I was a new faculty physician, I worked with a resident doctor who was smart and energetic and took excellent care of her patients.

There was just one problem. As she delivered her thoughtful patient presentations to me and the other attending doctors, it was hard not to notice her low-cut dress.

“You two have to say something to her,” one of my male colleagues said to me and another female doctor one afternoon. But while none of us would have hesitated to intervene had she prescribed the wrong drug for a patient, we felt weird saying something to her about her clothes. So we didn’t.

Nearly a decade later, my impression is that more young physicians and students are dressing like that resident. Every day, it seems, I see a bit of midriff here, a plunging neckline there. Open-toed sandals, displaying brightly manicured toes, seem ubiquitous.