For as long as I can remember, "the white coat" has always been a source of confusion.
I began to experience my first white coat confusion as a child growing
up with a mother and grandfather who were both doctors. Having received
a series of mixed messages, I never quite knew for sure whether the white
coat was the freshly ironed thing that "mommy wore to work",
or the disguise that cold-blooded doctors put on in preparation for torturing
innocent children in sterilized hospital rooms.
Having decided to become a doctor, I thought that I had left this confusion
behind. Little did I know that on my very first day of medical school
I would be faced with white coat confusion number two! When I found myself
standing amidst piles of white coats it came to me as a sudden shock that
the white coat was not simply a theoretical construct that symbolized
medicine as a whole, but an actual garment that needed to be sized. Suddenly,
unexpected difficulties presented themselves such as, well, size! The
32 seemed somehow too provocative while the 34 reminded me of the way
I looked when trying on my mother's white coat in state of confusion number
one.
The
final source of white coat confusion came when I mentioned my sizing crisis
at a family dinner. Both my mother and my grandfather asked me what exactly
I was planning to do with this size 34 white coat. Having completed their
medical training in Russia, both of them had taken the Hippocratic Oath
at their graduation, and could not understand the purpose of a white-coat
ceremony for a largely ignorant class of medical students. At first I
disregarded their mockery and proclaimed them white-coat snobs, but upon
further reflection, the third state of white-coat confusion set in. Was
this the right time to be receiving a white coat and taking a serious
oath, considering I didn't know the difference between a PanOptic and
Coaxial Ophthalmoscope, had no idea what petechiae was and was still taking
classes where they teach us not to eat the patient's food?
As must be evident by now, I arrived at the white coat ceremony with a
lot of white coat baggage. Fortunately, I was quickly put at ease. From
Dean Harrington's 
opening
remarks, it was evident that this was a welcome, not a graduation. In
fact, he mentioned that the prospect of us being doctors in four years
was "a terrifying thought" implying that he was well aware of
my ignorance regarding petechiae. Professor Spivak's suggestion that we
keep an open mind for as long as possible and his account of his own career
choice was not only encouraging but delivered a sense of the vast opportunity
we have ahead of us. The ceremony as a whole offered a sense of a defined
beginning. It also served as a necessary bridge between the details of
our studies, such as amino acid pKas and the means on exams, and the vision
we each have of medicine and of our future role in the medical profession.
Both the ceremony and the gift of the "On Doctoring" collection
created a clear sense that we are not simply joining an academic discipline,
but are entering a community and a multi-dimensional experience of doctoring.
Having said the oath together and received our white coats, I think that
we also felt the beginning of what will become our unity as a class. In
short, when we stood up in our coats to applaud, I felt that my confusion
regarding the white coat had dissipated. (The coat almost seemed to fit
better!) Hearing what the faculty had to say and saying the oath put our
immediate situation into perspective. Although I still can't help but
agree with a classmate who said, "This feels like a bib not a white
coat!" everyone has to start somewhere and this was a great way to
start.
Photos by Janelle Evans, M'06
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