White Coat Ceremony

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a few days since I last updated. It's been a bit busy around here. But we do think of all of you often, and we are definitely enjoying our time down here!

Friday, as many of you may know, was Ryan's white coat ceremony. I know some of you had troublee with the link to watch the live feed online, so here's a quick summary of what you may have missed.  The white coat ceremony was first introduced at the University of Chicago in 1989. A professor there was concerned that many of the new medical students were far more concerned with the clinical and scientific aspect of medicine and were forgetting about the human aspect of medicine. Since then this ceremony has been used at medical schools all around the world, as well as at dental, veterinary, podiatry, and optometry schools to name a few. White coat ceremonies typically address the issue of medical ethics.

As you may have guessed, Ryan's white coat ceremony was huge. We now know that there are 452 students in his class (about 20% will fail out of this first semester). They range in age from 20-54. You'd expect a ceremony involving that many people to be busy, and you'd be right. What you might not expect was the number of PARENTS who attended the ceremony. I don't know if they have the sort of job that allows them to escort their child down to medical school and stay for three weeks so that they can attend the ceremony, or if they are just rich enough that they can fly down to the island for a weekend. There were also a LOT of local dignitaries in attendence, including (there are many I'm forgetting I'm sure) the President of Dominica and his wife, the mayor of Portsmouth, the principal of the local school, the dean of Dominica's college, the minister of communication, the minister of transport... and they were all introduced with long rounds of applause.

When Ryan and I fist arrived, before the ceremony started, we were told that spouses would actually have to sit outside and would not be permitted to enter the ceremony. Later, just before it started, all the guests waiting outside were invited to try to find seats. And guess who they let in first... parents! The spouses were not allowed to enter until after the ceremony was started, as they were introducing the president, and we didn't actually get to sit until probably ten minutes into the ceremony. But at least we made it in.

The keynote speaker was pretty good, he reminded the students to remember their duty was first to their patients. He pointed out several historic cases in which patients had not been the first priority. Some of the cases he spoke about were the Eugenics Program in America, the Tuskeegee Study, and several others. He reminded students not to be blinded by the money and fame that research or a discovery  might bring, but to remember the value of human life and to ensure first and foremost that they were moral and ethical. He also spoke some about more minor ethical dilemmas they might face, involving patient care and insurance companies and the like.

Then there was the actual white coat ceremony! I have several photos of Ryan that I thought you might all enjoy seeing.

 This photo gives you an idea of the size of the room. There are four large screens in the front of the room, and those TVs you see are plasma screen tvs, probably about 45 inches. There are fifteen of them in the room, so that no matter where you sit it's easy to see. This room is where Ryan attends class.

 Sorry this photo is sideways! That's Ryan's ear. He's in the blue polo shirt. I was very excited to finally find him in the large crowd.

And here is Ryan standing up front, waiting to have his white coat put on by a member of the faculty. I'll have to make another post with photos of him actually putting on his coat and of him in his coat, since blogger doesn't seem to let me put too many photos in one post.