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They worked long and hard to get here, and just completed six whirlwind weeks as new medical students. But during today’s White Coat Ceremony, the School of Medicine Class of 2018 paused to reflect on their achievements and their promising futures as they celebrated their entry into the medical community.
In the presence of faculty members, campus leaders, family and friends, 125 women and men donned their first white coats, the universal symbol of their chosen profession, at the concluding event for Convocation Week 2014 at UMass Medical School.
“The white coat which you will soon put on is an apt and appropriate metaphor for the transition upon which you are embarking. To wear this white coat means you have chosen to dedicate your lives to the needs of others,” Chancellor Michael F. Collins said in his welcoming remarks. “As stewards of this public medical school, we’re so pleased to welcome you into our medical community and to guide you toward a career of learning and caring for others.”
Also congratulating the students, School of Medicine Dean Terence R. Flotte focused on the physician as person, the sixth competency of the School of Medicine’s curriculum. “Wearing the white coat means you’re becoming a real doctor,” said Dr. Flotte. “Remember we are so privileged to wear the white coat and to be invited into the lives of our patients. The ideal of the white coat and the struggle to live up to that ideal must be maintained.”
The keynote address “The Second Millennium: A Revolutionary Period In American Medicine” was delivered by Richard S. Irwin, MD, professor of medicine and recipient of the 2013 Chancellor’s Medal for Clinical Excellence.
“You are entering the most noble of professions and doing so at a most interesting, exciting and challenging of times,” Dr. Irwin told the students. “And, you are embarking upon your training at one of the finest medical institutions in the world.”
Irwin made a clarion call to the future doctors to focus on compassionate, patient-centered care.
“I believe that patient-focused care is the care we want our families to receive all of the time. I do not mean to imply that it is the care we want just for our families,” he said. “It is the care we want all of our patients to receive.”
“If we don’t know how to provide patient-focused care in a certain situation, physicians should ask themselves ‘What would I want another health care provider to do for my mother or father or wife or children or grandchildren?’ The answer will often be the patient-focused care thing to do.”
The White Coat Ceremony is a modern tradition initiated in 1993 by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, which most U.S. medical schools now celebrate. First held at UMass Medical School in 2010, the White Coat Ceremony has become a meaningful and joyous event for School of Medicine students and their families, and the faculty mentors.
At the ceremony, each student is assisted in putting on the white coat by their Learning Community House mentor and a significant person of their choosing. Donated by members of the SOM Class of 2014 in a symbolic “passing of the torch” to the next generation of medical students, each coat is embroidered with the student’s name and adorned with a pin representing their Learning Community house. Inside the coat pocket, these first-year students will find a slip of paper with the name of the student who donated their coat. They will also find a card with the name of their faculty mentors. Both are reminders that they are not alone on this challenging journey.
Emphasizing the importance of both scientific excellence and compassionate care for the patient, the ceremony closed with the class’s recitation of an oath written by the Class of 2016, symbolizing the interclass partnership central to the Learning Communities.
With that oath the class agreed to accept Irwin’s challenge to them: Citing the ancient proverb ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it,’ Irwin exhorted the Class of 2018 to “be one of the horses who ingests all that the medical school and medical center have to teach.”
The full video of the 2014 White Coat Ceremony can be viewed here.
