Unique White Coat Ceremony Kicks Off Careers for Physician Assistant Trainees at Franklin College
Campus News
The Franklin College Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies Program hosted its White Coat Ceremony on Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. The college’s cohort of 24 PA students from the class of 2022 received their white coats and recited a medical oath during a unique Zoom ceremony, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Family members enjoyed the honor of presenting the students with their white coats.
The ceremony is a rite of passage welcoming students into healthcare practice by providing a white coat symbolizing professionalism and humanistic patient care. At Franklin College, it marks the transition from the didactic year to the clinical year and the beginning of clinical rotations. It is the halfway mark of the 25-month, full-time program.
A coat, a commitment, a celebration
Seventy-two nursing students make transition from classroom learning to patient care
The “share” screen’s upper half started off dark toward the end of Thursday’s virtual White Coat Ceremony, almost like a gloaming sky. In phases, on command, cameras winked on, revealing tiny images of Norwich University nursing students in their new white coats. In waves, members of the Classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022 formed a tiny galaxy.
That the students shined starlike fit. Seventy-two of them had sworn an oath to keep humanity central as they progressed. Donning their white coats marked their transition from classroom-based instruction to the beginning of hands-on patient care.