Some quotes on the history of the White Coat Ceremony - it all started out to distill the values of compassion and ethics in medicine.
The involvement of The Arnold P. Gold Foundation in what we now call The White Coat Ceremony actually began at commencement exercises at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, where Dr. Arnold Gold has been a teacher and pediatric neurologist for more than forty years.
The Gold Foundation initiated commencement awards in 1991 for a faculty member and a student who best demonstrate both humanistic care and clinical excellence. In support of the awardees, Doctors Arnold and Sandra Gold regularly attended graduation exercises at Columbia where it is customary for medical students to recite the Hippocratic oath. This noble 2,500 year old tradition obligates new doctors to high professional standards for patient care and the practice of medicine.
Dr. Gold became aware, as he witnessed Columbia’s graduation ceremony each year, that the recitation of the Hippocratic Oath, when students accept the obligations of our profession comes four years too late. It is during medical school that students experience their initial contacts with patients and establish their professional orientation. The Foundation believes that medical students should be given well defined guidelines regarding the expectations and responsibilities appropriate for the medical profession prior to their first day of education and training. This is what inspired the Foundation to begin advocacy and sponsorship of what has become the “White Coat Ceremony.”
Providing a ritual to mark the passage of the student into our medical society is as old as the Hippocratic Oath itself. Hippocrates administered the oath to students before their medical studies began, not after they were completed.
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The Arnold P. Gold Foundation designed the White Coat Ceremony to welcome entering medical students and help them to establish a psychological contract for the practice of medicine. The event emphasizes the importance of compassionate care for the patient as well as scientific proficiency and includes several elements:
- Welcome to the profession of medicine by the Dean and Faculty
- Recitation or discussion of an oath (such as the Hippocratic Oath or a student-written oath) which represents the public acknowledgment by the students of the responsibilities of the profession and their willingness to assume such obligations in the presence of family, friends, and faculty
- Cloaking of students in their first white coats
- An address by an eminent physician role model
- Celebration at a reception with students’ invited guestsThe White Coat Ceremony was initiated on August 20, 1993 at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. Grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1996 and 1997 made future and widespread advocacy of this celebratory and solemn event possible. Currently, a White Coat Ceremony or similar rite of passage takes place at more than 90% of schools of medicine and osteopathy in the United States, as well as at all four medical schools in Israel.
The White Coat Ceremony was initiated on August 20, 1993 at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. In 1994, New Jersey Medical School held its first annual White Coat Ceremony, becoming the nation’s second medical school to do so. Grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1996 and 1997 made widespread advocacy of this celebratory and solemn event possible. Currently, a White Coat Ceremony or similar rite of passage takes place at 96% of AAMC-accredited schools of medicine in the United States, as well as at osteopathic schools of medicine and at schools abroad in Antigua, Australia, Canada, The Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Qatar, and South Korea.
At the ceremony, students are welcomed by their deans, the president of the hospital, or other respected leaders who represent the value system of the school and the new profession the students are about to enter. The cloaking with the white coat—the mantle of the medical profession—is a hands-on experience that underscores the bonding process. It is personally placed on each student’s shoulders by individuals who believe in the students’ ability to carry on the noble tradition of doctoring. It is a personally delivered gift of faith, confidence and compassion.
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modernathenamd reblogged this from themedicalchronicles and added:
My white coat was given to me by one of the founders of my program, who runs things at my clinical site. I met him at my...
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