“I will practice medicine with conscience and dignity.” At a ceremony on Friday, October 7, 2016 in UVM’s Ira Allen Chapel, 118 first-year medical students uttered those words as part of a major career milestone: receiving their first white doctors’ coats. Two short months ago, members of the Class of 2020 at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont began their journeys as medical students.

After receiving their white coats, the Class of 2020 recited “The Oath.” While many are familiar with the Hippocratic oath’s “first do no harm,” Larner and a number of other medical schools across the country recite adapted versions of oaths to verbally signify students’ commitment to their patients and the profession. “The Oath” at the Larner College of Medicine is actually an adaptation of the “Oath of Lasagna of 1964.” (Read a recent article about medical schools’ oaths that appeared in STAT.)

While UVM’s newest class of future doctors still have years of classwork and training ahead of them, they are in a unique position; they have access to two new additions at the college: a remodeled Reardon Classroom in the Larner Medical Education Center – the second of two active learning classrooms that allow learners to build on prior knowledge, improve retention and sharpen their reasoning skills in a group-based learning setting – and a new course called Foundations of Clinical Science, which they are currently taking and which integrates basic principles, concepts, and methods foundational to the study and practice of medicine, and draws from biochemistry, cell biology, epidemiology, ethics, genetics, pharmacology, and public health. Students learn to apply basic scientific principles and develop frameworks for clinical decision-making and the practice of evidence-based medicine.

Among the members of the Class of 2020 are:

• Daniel De Los Santos, a Texas native whose passion led him from seeking rock star fame to a pursuit of healing others through music. During his first semester at the University of Texas at Dallas, he was invited to fill in as the bass guitarist for Billboard-charting rock band Memphis May Fire. Although brief, the experience left him at a crossroads between either progressing further as a musician or seeking a more lasting, direct route to healing others. Work as a lifeguard and children’s hospital volunteer clinched his desire to become a doctor who values caring for the patient just as much as curing them.
• Scott Mitchell of Maine and Vermont, who developed a standing frame for cerebral palsy and spina bifida patients and founded a nonprofit – called Stand With Me – while completing a liberal arts/engineering dual degree at Bowdoin College and the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. Fluent in Spanish, he learned of the need for medical equipment in Central and South America while volunteering there in high school. To date, Stand With Me has provided 395 frames free of charge to patients in Guatemala, Honduras and Peru.
• Emily Vayda, a native of Wichita, Kansas, who became involved with different food security, public service and social justice groups as a biochemistry major/nutrition minor at UVM. She was president of the UVM chapter of the Campus Kitchens Project, which helps combat hunger locally by growing fresh produce, recovering food from campus cafeterias, and teaching nutrition. As a medical student, she’s carrying on a family tradition: her father, James Vayda, M.D.’87, is an alumnus of the Larner College of Medicine.

Opening remarks at the ceremony were delivered by Christa Zehle, M.D., associate dean for students, Frederick C. Morin, M.D., dean of the Larner College of Medicine, and Claude Deschamps, M.D., president of the UVM Medical Group. Candace Fraser, M.D., associate professor of family medicine and the 2016 UVM faculty recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, delivered the keynote presentation at the ceremony. The official Presentation of Coats included Fraser; Tania Bertsch, M.D., associate dean for clinical education; and Paula Tracy, Ph.D., director of the Foundations Level of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum.

A portion of the funding for the white coats is provided by the UVM Medical Alumni Association. The Arnold P. Gold Foundation provides the gift of Humanism in Medicine lapel pins to each medical student participating in the White Coat Ceremony. The UVM Office of Primary Care provide students with a keepsake copy of The Oath.

Background Information on the White Coat Ceremony:

• Initiated on August 20, 1993 at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, this annual ceremony or a similar rite now takes place for first-year medical students at about 90 percent of schools of medicine and osteopathy in the United States, and is supported by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. 
• According to the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, the White Coat Ceremony helps establish a psychological contract for the practice of medicine. 
• Physicians dressed in black until the late 19th century, due to the association of black attire as formal. Physicians adopted the white coat as a symbol of purity at the beginning of the 20th century. 

(Source: Mark Hochberg, M.D., “The Doctor's White Coat--an Historical Perspective,” American Medical Association Journal of Ethic’s Virtual Mentor website, April 2007)