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My white coat envelops the day to day minutia of medical school to remind me of my accountability to my peers, myself and my profession. It represents my personal challenge to hold myself to a high standard of responsibility for others. It’s a reminder to improve myself academically beyond my grades, and seek experience and perspective so I can best serve my patients.
-Charlotte Goldman, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
The decision to leave my career in theater was the hardest I’ve had to make. A lot of reasons compelled me to pursue the change; ultimately I felt like I had more to contribute to this world than what theatre would allow. I chose to give up all the roles I might have played for the final role of physician.
-Lauren Klingman, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
Being in the Air Force, my patients will all have worked hard at keeping our country safe, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need someone to look out for their health as well. My white coat means I’ll be there every step of the way, preventing disease and treating my fellow Airmen as the need arises. Safety isn’t just the way we prevent problems. It’s a bedside manner, open communication, and a promise to do my best for all my patients.
-Gina Biagetti, 2LT, USAFR; MD Candidate, Class of 2019
My white coat symbolizes a blank canvas. It serves as a platform upon which the patients I encounter can depict their stories – both medical and personal. Even as medical students, patients entrust us with the most intimate, vulnerable details of their lives. Every time we walk into a patient’s room donned in our white coats, we carry with us the promise of a nonjudgmental, attentive ear and a helping hand.
-Clare Goggins, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
There is a quote attributed to Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J. that speaks of love. It goes, “Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."
This is what the white coat means to me. Sure, I’m not always thrilled that medical school is what I do with my evenings and weekends, but nothing else makes me feel more grounded, more myself. I have fallen in love with medicine, with my future patients, with the act of healing and the act of sitting with others in their suffering, in their humanity. To me, this is vocation.
-Katherine Wikholm, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
Going to medical school and committing to becoming a physician only really made sense to me when I began volunteering through my undergraduate university's service learning program. Building relationships with people who had been marginalized and stigmatized by substance abuse, homelessness, mental illness, or HIV status--and feeling a sense of shared humanity between us--propelled me to prioritize working for social justice by leveraging my talents & privilege for others. Being a physician and combining science with direct service will let me do just that--it's the best way I can think of for me to positively impact the world.
-Kathryn Oskar, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
I have a love-hate relationship with my white coat. On the one hand, it empowers me to learn, serve, and advocate. On the other, it sets me apart from the individuals I wish to sit and speak with eye to eye, hand in hand. Nonetheless, through this conflict I have found compromise on one notion: that it is an extraordinary privilege to be invited into the lives of others, and an immense task to be worthy of their trust.
-Monika Gasiorek, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
My study of medicine has fueled a fascination with the question of what it is to be human. As I have come to see it, putting on my white coat articulates a desire to understand human form and function while satisfying a natural inclination to grasp the common human experience. It is this unique human connectedness that most draws me to medicine, a vehicle for improving the quality of life of others without difference or judgement.
-Christine Papastamelos, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
This coat is a symbol of my choice and promise to be a physician who upholds the Georgetown and Jesuit motto of cura personalis. I am committed to caring for the whole patient-- body, mind, and soul. I am so proud to attend a university whose mission is to not only create exceptional clinicians, but to create true healers.
-Justine Achille, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
Do you know why doctors wear white?
For centuries, medicine was not as effective as one would expect; treatment was based on ancient knowledge of anatomy, folklore, and traditional remedies rather than real scientific evidence, and despite the best efforts of physicians at the time, patients suffered for it. Healers actually wore black out of a sense of formality or gravity in the face impending death.
It was only in the last century that medicine embraced clear scientific practices. We learned that disease can be spread by germs, and developed medications and techniques to sterilize ourselves and prevent infections that have plagued humanity for generations. Physicians began to wear laboratory coat white as a way to reflect this new outlook, one of truth seeking, cleanliness, and new life.
The white coat is a symbol of our vow to do no harm, of hope for the future, and a reminder to always seek new ways to aid those in need of our help, in whatever capacity that may be.
Every time I put on my white coat, that is the message I want to send to anyone who sees it.
-Arthur Jurao, MD Candidate, Class of 2019
