One by one as their names were called, the 39 members of the Yale Physicians Associate Program’s Class of 2019 took to the stage in the Harkness Auditorium. There, a member of the Class of 2018 greeted them and helped each student don a white coat. Then they hugged, or shook hands, and left the stage together. One student helped send his “little,” as junior students in the program are called, off into the world of clinical medicine by straightening his collar and proudly brushing the shoulders of his new coat. This White Coat Ceremony, which was celebrated on September 8, marks the transition of first-year students from the classroom to the hospital halls, where they will continue their education working directly with patients.
As part of the tradition, which began 10 years ago, the first-year students received their white coats from members of the second-year class. In exchange, the second-year students received pins bearing the School of Medicine crest. “This pin is a reminder that it’s not enough to be the best PA that you can possibly be. That’s something we expect of our students,” said Alexandria Garino, M.S., PA-C, interim director of the PA program. “It’s a reminder that as we gain some level of competence, we need to turn around and help who is coming after.”
Since the 19th century, the white coat, also known as the “cloak of compassion,” has served as a symbol of clinicians' commitment to healing and caring for patients humanely and to the best of their ability. The ceremony itself is a young tradition, with Yale’s first occurring in 2007 in a small classroom at the medical school. Back then, “We robed the students, said a few words, and that was it,” said Garino. “There were no family or friends. Since then, it’s grown to be the event it is today.”
In addition to the white coat, each student received another symbol of clinical medicine—a stethoscope donated by Yale PA program alumni, many of whom were in attendance.
“This ceremony is like a symbolic passport to allow you to become a practitioner in medicine or surgery,” said keynote speaker Peter Juergensen, PA ’78. “It opens up a variety of pathways.”
All of those pathways, Juergensen told the students, have the same thing at the core—patients. During the clinical phase of their training, he said, students will practice “a higher level of care with dealing with patients than before. This ceremony celebrates that you are now crossing that threshold into taking the responsibility of the white coat.” Juergensen, president of the American Academy of Nephrology Physician Assistants and the National Kidney Foundation chair of the Council of Advanced Practitioners, regularly speaks at national conferences focused on both the PA profession and nephrology.
This year’s ceremony marked the 50th anniversary of the profession. The role of the PA came in response to a perceived shortage of physicians in the 1960s, coinciding with large numbers of clinically trained soldiers returning from service in the Vietnam War. Yale’s PA program is the third oldest in the country, beginning in 1970 and graduating more than 1,200 PAs since then.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, students of both classes stood before a full auditorium and recited the Yale PA program’s professional oath, in which they pledged to care compassionately for patients and continually build on their knowledge and share it with others.
This ceremony is like a symbolic passport to allow you to become a practitioner in medicine or surgery.
Peter Juergensen