20th Anniversary of the White Coat Ceremony

The ritual is believed to have originated twenty years ago, in 1989, at the acclaimed University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. Its purpose was to mark the transition between the initial science course curriculum and the beginning of their clinical and direct patient care training. It is a formal ceremony in which medical student's don - for the first time - the traditional white lab coat that physicians have worn for more than a century. The primary elements in the White Coat Ceremony typically include: recognition of the students for completing pre-clinical studies, affirmation of a commitment to medical ethics, actual "cloaking" of the students in white lab coats, and recitation of the Hippocratic Oath. It is similar to a medical school graduation, in that parents and friends are encouraged to attend, in order to witness and recognize this important milestone.

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