New Yale MD Students Don Their White Coats

The White Coat Ceremony for the 104 members of the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) MD Class of 2029, which marked the start of their medical school journey, included welcoming, reflective, and inspiring remarks from school leaders and an experienced doctor, as is the tradition. This year, it also included the poignant, thoughtful perspective of a rising second-year YSM MD student.

Benjamin Doolittle, MD, MA Div, professor of medicine (general medicine), of pediatrics, and of divinity and director of the Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program, shared the insights of this student—Comfort Abuwa—as part of his White Coat Address. He explained that he teaches a philosophy seminar at YSM in the summer, and asked his students what they would say if they were delivering the White Coat Address. Abuwa responded.

“This white coat is not a symbol of perfection. It’s a symbol of your commitment—to show up, to listen carefully, to keep learning, and to care even when you’re tired or uncertain. Patients will come to you not just for knowledge, but for hope, clarity, and presence. When an answer or diagnosis is not possible, remember that one of the most powerful things you can offer is your ability to sit with another human being in their moment of need, with honesty and compassion. Let this coat remind you of that privilege, and of the kind of person you are becoming, not just the professional you are training to be.”

After sharing Abuwa’s remarks, Doolittle stated, “It is a special moment when the student becomes the teacher, and the teacher becomes the student.”

Abuwa’s focus on the importance of both knowledge and humanity in becoming and being a doctor was reflected throughout the Aug. 8 ceremony. The event took place under a clear blue sky on YSM’s Harkness Lawn, which was filled with the new students’ families and friends, as well as many members of the YSM community.

In her welcoming remarks, Nancy J. Brown, MD, Jean and David W. Wallace Dean and C.N.H. Long Professor of Internal Medicine, described how, “The white coat has come to symbolize the importance of science in medicine, but also to symbolize professionalism and humanitarian ideals.” She noted, “Curiosity is the element common to the scientific and the humanistic underpinnings of medicine symbolized by the white coat.”

In introducing Doolittle, Brown described him as “a remarkable individual whose work stands at the intersection of medicine, spirituality, and humanism,” and Doolittle’s remarks focused on the importance of knowledge and humanism in medicine.

After joking about most people not remembering what their White Coat speaker said, Doolittle told the students he hoped they would remember the one rule he has for medicine that has shaped his practice—including every patient interaction—as well as his research and teaching.

He began with the first part of the rule: “The medicine is easy,” acknowledging this might sound surprising to the students, given how hard they all worked to get to YSM and that they soon will have to memorize “the Krebs cycle, the anatomy of the brachial plexus, and the word salad of all those medications.” Doolittle addressed any doubts by stating, “You know what folks, you are all so smart, you can figure it out,” noting that current technology, such as AI, makes things even easier.

He then turned to the second part of the rule, which he emphasized is “really important”: “Everything else is hard.” Expanding on this, he stated that medicine is “really, really hard for our patients.” While it is easy to write a prescription, “for a human being to take that medicine every day means that a whole bunch of things need to happen,” such as the patient figuring out how to take a pill daily, pay for it, explain to their families why they are taking the medication, “and on and on and on.”

But even more than that, Doolittle explained, “Your patient needs to believe in you, to trust you, that this is the right thing to do. And your patients need to believe in themselves, that they have the dignity and self-worth to take such a life-saving medication.”

Shifting from patients to what is hard for doctors and others in health care, Doolittle shared that he has been studying burnout and human flourishing for the past 25 years and is always surprised by the data. “One-half of you meet criteria for burnout. One-quarter of you have a significant mental health challenge.” Although these conditions fluctuate among individuals, he said the overall percentages stay about the same among practicing physicians.

After praising the students for being “at the very top, top, top of academic accomplishment,” he stated that, “in many ways, you have arrived broken. We all are a little bit broken.” He pointed out that “the qualities that got you here—the discipline, the ambition, the brains—are exactly those qualities that make us all a little nuts.”

Doolittle then shared an idea he attributed to New York Times columnist David Brooks, theologians, and others, of “resume virtues,” for example, accomplishments, titles, and publications, and “eulogy virtues,” such as that someone was a good parent, a good friend, and cared for their patients.

“I recognize that we live in a world that over-emphasizes resume virtues,” Doolittle stated, but “we also live in a world that craves the connection, the authenticity, the power, the joy, the love of rich eulogy virtues.” He told the students, “you have been chosen to be at Yale not only because of your resume virtues, but also because of your eulogy virtues,” describing how he has experienced this combination in YSM students for decades.

Doolittle stated that patients, and the world, need doctors with strong resume and eulogy virtues. “Our patients ache for not just a competent physician, but one who is kind and wise and honorable. I believe that we can lean into the ways we are broken to discover our true power as healers. To cultivate these virtues requires a moral courage and a humility. The world needs you, all of you.”

After Doolittle’s remarks, the 104 members of the class—who graduated from 53 undergraduate colleges and were selected from among more than 6,200 applicants—each received their white coat and a stethoscope. In her closing remarks, Brown thanked the YSM alumni for what has become a tradition: donating the white coats and stethoscopes and writing notes to the students, which are placed in the white coat pockets, welcoming the students to the YSM community.