White coat ceremony

The tradition & historical record

The white coat ceremony (WCC) is a ritual in some medical schools and other health-related fields that marks the medical student's transition from the study of preclinical to clinical health sciences. At some schools, where students begin meeting patients early in their education, the white coat ceremony is held before the first year begins. It is an example of a matriculation. The ritual is a recent invention, first being popularized in the 1990s. The ceremony typically involves a formal "coating" of students by giving them a white coat. The white coat ceremony was first started by the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago in 1989, and became a full-fledged ceremony at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1993. ¹

Over 100 medical schools in the United States now have a WCC, and many students now consider it a rite of passage in the journey toward a healthcare career. Some schools also use this ceremony as a graduation from the entire program. According to one author, R.‌ M. Veatch, WCCs have taken on a quasi-religious significance which symbolizes a "conversion" of a lay person into a member of the healthcare profession and is similar to a priest's ordination to the priesthood, although the white coat is a recent adoption by the medical profession. However, in many medical schools around the world students simply begin wearing their white coats during first-year anatomy class, without an official white coat ceremony. In the nineteenth century, respect for the certainty of science was in stark contrast to the quackery and mysticism of nineteenth-century medicine. To emphasize the transition to the more scientific approach to modern medicine, physicians sought to represent themselves as scientists and began to wear white laboratory coat, a recognizable symbol of the scientist. Its continued adoption led to the more recent association of the white coat with medicine. ¹

The white coat ceremony first started by the Pritzker School of Medicine of the University of Chicago in 1989, and became a full-fledged ceremony at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1993. In 1993, Arnold P. Gold, a teacher and pediatric neurologist, created the first full-fledged WCC at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Before this ceremony, medical students typically received the Hippocratic Oath for the first time at commencement. This ceremony marks a change in tradition, introducing students to the Oath before starting their first year of study. This was intended to provide students with well-defined guidelines regarding the expectations and responsibilities appropriate for the medical profession prior to their first day of class. Since its conception at Columbia, the WCC has spread rapidly to schools of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, osteopathic medicine, optometry, nursing, and veterinary medicine. White coat ceremonies have also spread to medical schools in other countries, such as Iran, Israel, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Poland, and others. The ceremony is no longer limited to medical students; starting in 1995, U.S. pharmacy schools started holding WCCs, with most pharmacy students receiving their coats at the end of their first academic year. In 2003 a survey found that the majority of US pharmacy schools hold WCCs. An Arnold P. ¹

In years past, white coats were generally reserved for attending or faculty physicians who wore long white coats, resident physicians who wore long or medium-length coats, and medical students, who wore short white coats. Increasingly, non-physicians and non-medical students wear white coats in the hospital setting. Some physicians recommend against wearing a white coat for infection control reasons, but other physicians don't wear a white coat because it no longer reliably identifies a physician in a clinical care setting. In general, medical students are prohibited from wearing a long white coat. In many hospitals, non-physicians like phlebotomists, nurses, nurse practitioners, nursing students, and physician assistant students, are permitted to wear long coats. Some physicians and medical students have expressed frustration that a medical student has to "earn" a long white coat by completing medical school, but other professionals do not have to complete medical school. They think it's unfair. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “White coat ceremony”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

White coat ceremony is relatively new ritual in some medical schools and pharmacy schools, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²