White Coat Ceremonies Are Next Week!

Today I went over to the Case campus and found out where Severance Hall is. That's where we're going to have our white coat ceremony next weekend. Most medical schools have these white coat ceremonies where they give the new medical students their first white coats. It's a formal event, and the students' family and friends are invited to see them officially become medical students. You've probably heard of the famous ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates, who is said to have written the Hippocratic Oath. (See below.) Some schools have their students recite the Hippocratic Oath during the white coat ceremony. What we do here at Case is to write our own medical ethics oath to use during the white coat ceremony. Every medical class at Case writes its own oath, so this year's oath will be different than last year's. I think that's neat.

It's kind of interesting for those of us in the College Program. At Case, we use short coats like the University Program students do to designate that we're students. Only people who have already earned their MD degree wear the long coats. However, at CCF, we use long coats, even as students. So we CCLCM students will be doing everything twice: two white coats, two white coat ceremonies. I'll tell you more about them next week.

This is the Hippocratic Oath, translated from Greek:

I swear by Apollo the physician, by Æsculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgement, the following Oath.
To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and if necessary to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise; to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciples who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone the precepts and the instruction.
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.
Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.
But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art.
I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.
In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.
All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.
If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot."