Branding Asklepios and the Traditional and Variant Serpent Symbol Display Among Health Professional Schools in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada: A Cross-Sectional Survey

BACKGROUND: History supports the staff and single serpent, the asklepian, as the symbol of healing and medicine, yet its confusion with the caduceus (a winged staff with two snakes wrapped around it) persists. No population-based information on serpent symbol use exists. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of asklepian and caduceus display among Internet images of medical and health professional schools’ emblems, and to compare asklepian and caduceus display between medical and health professional schools, examining the effects of school longevity and geographic location on symbol display. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey examined Internet websites and Google Images associated with medical and other health professional schools in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada from 2013 to 2015. The primary outcome was display of a traditional or variant asklepian or caduceus among current and past emblems in Google Images. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals for the comparison of medical versus other health professional schools were calculated by logistic regression. Differences among schools' longevity were assessed with Student's t-tests and linear regression. RESULTS: Among images of current and past emblems of 482 schools—159 medical schools and 323 health professional schools—107 (22.2%) emblems displayed only the traditional, and 205 (42.5%) any, asklepian. Adjusting for geographic region and longevity, medical schools were 59% less likely than health professional schools to display the traditional asklepian (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.24-0.71, P=.001), and were 7.7 times more likely than health professional schools to display the traditional caduceus. Medical schools were 8% less likely than health professional schools to display any asklepian (OR 0.92, 95% CI 0.62-1.38, P=.70), and were 3.3 times more likely than health professional schools to display any caduceus. CONCLUSIONS: Schools’ preference of the asklepian over the caduceus confirmed historical origins. Less asklepian and more caduceus display by medical schools suggests an educational opportunity for the medical profession to define for itself and the public the correct symbol of an interdisciplinary mission of healing.