The White Coat Ceremony

    On August 17, 2012, 163 first year medical students of the largest incoming M.D. class ever at USF MCOM, received a white coat. It was a two-hour ceremony on a rainy afternoon. We still had class from 8am-12pm, but many students skipped to receive the family members that would attend the ceremony. My family is a 3-hour plane ride away, so they could not be present, but my best friend of 11 years now came to see me, so it was as if I really had family there after all. All the excitement and commotion usually present at graduations was there, except we were starting a journey instead of ending it. Dressed in our business-best, ready for the marathon of camera flashes that would come our way, we marched in the ballroom behind a man playing bag pipes, in our respective alphabetical order. We sat facing the crowd, with gleaming faces; in the melee it was hard to tell who was bursting more with pride, the students or the families.

    Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, proceeded to give a speech about the meaning of the white coat. Without the coat, he is a regular guy, but as soon as he puts it on, people look at him differently. They show respect and trust because he is representing something more than himself. Receiving the white coat marks the start of our professional life. It still blew my mind to think that the 163 students around me WOULD be doctors one day. It was a certainty and not a possibility anymore. 

        Dr. Brownlee, professor of medicine and 2012 recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, spoke about the dangers the white coat can bring. Illusions of power that interfere with patient care and about the importance of taking the white coat off every once in a while to just be human.  Simple things like saying "I'm sorry" to a patient can be the most humanistic and hardest thing to do for a physician some times. Alicia Billington, a third year medical student at USF MCOM and president of the Student Council, spoke about humanism in her experiences as a student. She encountered a three-car crash on the highway once and stopped to help the victims while an ambulance arrived. At that point in her academic life, however, the most she could do was give CPR if a victim's heart stopped, and there was not much she could do without equipment to aid her. She spoke about how she sometimes felt she had been clinically right, but she still felt she had failed the patient. “Please don’t forget to smile and touch your patients. Don’t for forget to be human,” Alicia said. I surprisingly enjoyed each of the speeches. I expected them to be monotonous and boring but they held everyone's attention the entire time. l also loved how they emphasized the advantages and disadvantages of the white coat; like they're about to raise you on a pedestal, but they ask you to remember to step down and level with everyone else at the same time.

       Then the official coating began. Members of the faculty coated the students as we walked to the stage in groups of four. The coat had the school's seal on it, as well as a gold pin in the collar that read "Humanism in medicine". Theoretically, it should have had our names embroidered on them, but the order was not done on time and we had to return the coats after the ceremony was over.When everyone had been coated, the class was presented. The audience's exhilaration swelled our chests even more. We proceeded to pledge the Oath of Commitment, USF's modified version of the Oath of Hippocrates. In it vowed to practice medicine honorably and morally; to improve healthcare in our community; and to recognize when our abilities reach their limits, and seek assistance when that happens. We also made a commitment to life-long learning and respect of patient confidentiality.

       In a way, the White Coat Ceremony felt like a marriage ritual. Even though we get a coat instead of a ring, we still promise to practice it faithfully for as long as we shall live, and it still marks first day of the rest of our lives.

Short Video of Ceremony-Tampa Bay Times

Article by USF Health on WCC: http://hscweb3.hsc.usf.edu/blog/2012/08/18/a-commitment-to-humanity-in-medicine/#.UDPfQrGgvIQ.facebook