In early August, a new class of 165 young student physicians (called M1s) begin their long professional journey as asclepiads at the University of Mississippi’s School of Medicine in Jackson. Their first rite of passage is the White Coat Ceremony, which takes place before the first day of classes. This symbolic act occurs at most medical schools and is a recent invention, first popularized in the 1990s. The ritual usually includes a formal “cloaking” or “coating” of students in a short white coat after the deans call their names, initiating their journey as physicians.
The white coat, even more than our doctor’s bags and our stethoscopes, has become the primary symbol of our profession over the last 150 years. Most historians trace the advent of the white coat in medicine to the late nineteenth century. Two iconic paintings by American artist Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic from 1875 and The Agnew Clinic in 1889, depict physicians dressed in black garb in the former and white smocks in the latter. Before the white coat, physicians dressed in more formal dark attire, indicating the serious and solemn nature of their work. The evolution occurred with the emergence of antisepsis and laboratory science. The white laboratory coat, the uniform of a scientist, became the cloak of medicine, emphasizing the rise of “science” in our art. Many of our patients prefer to see us in our uniforms, viewing the white coat as the embodiment of our profession’s commitment to patient care and compassion.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward, who oversees the medical school as Vice Chancellor and Dean, asserted to me recently that this annual White Coat Ceremony serves two purposes. First, when a white coat is placed on new medical students’ shoulders, they are symbolically inducted into and accepted by the institution’s family. Second, the ceremony evokes an awareness of the white coat as representing “the privilege, honor, and sacredness of the patient-physician relationship.” The wearer of the white coat should understand that he or she has accepted a responsibility for a body of knowledge, a level of skill, a commitment to put the patients’ needs first, and a code of professional and personal behaviors. “The coat symbolizes the values we stand for in the practice of medicine,” Dr. Woodward stresses. All physicians should embrace these shared values and remember that our uniform is an emblem of the trust earned from our patients in every act of care.
Contact me at drluciuslampton@gmail.com. — Lucius M. Lampton, MD, Editor