Macon and Atlanta, GA — First-year students at Mercer University School of Medicine will be cloaked in their white coats on Sunday, Aug. 18, as part of the annual White Coat Ceremony marking their formal induction into the discipline of medicine. For the first time ever, students from Mercer’s Southern School of Pharmacy will be given their white coats during a similar ceremony in Atlanta on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
During the separate ceremonies, 56 medical students and 134 first-year pharmacy students will receive and put on their white coats, a tradition designed to help instill a sense of professionalism, responsibility and commitment expected of doctors and pharmacists.
“We hope this ceremony clarifies for our students that a physician’s responsibility is not only to cure a patient, but also to care for them,” said Ann C. Jobe, dean of the School of Medicine.
The ceremony will conclude with the recitation of The Oath of Geneva.
H.W. “Ted” Matthews, dean of the Southern School of Pharmacy in Atlanta, said it was important to establish a White Coat Ceremony for pharmacy students so they could gain a true sense of the School’s core values, which focus on professionalism, respect, integrity and caring.
“This ceremony symbolizes our students’ commitment to health care and to the pharmacy profession,” said Matthews. As part of the ceremony, the students will recite an Oath of Professionalism at which time they will dedicate their lives and pharmacy practices to excellence.
The School of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony will take place Aug. 18 at 3 p.m. at The Grand Opera House on Mulberry Street, Macon.
The inaugural White Coat Ceremony for the Southern School of Pharmacy will begin at 2 p.m. on Aug. 20 in the Sheffield Center on Mercer’s Cecil B. Day Campus in northeast Atlanta.
— END —
