The Emotional White Coat Ceremony for all Inaugural Students at VinUni College Of Health Sciences
On the Convocation day, VinUni CHS also conducted its very first White Coat Ceremony (WCC) for all inaugural MD, BN students and 19 residents. Dean Maurizio Trevisan addressed to all students about the true meaning of the white coat, about responsibility, and above all – about love:
The white coat has come to symbolize the health care professions. However, health care professional coats were not always white. The white coat became popular at the turn of the 19th century. Before this time the coats were black. Black indicated formality and allowed to cover all the dirt, grimes, blood stains. Around the end of the 19th century, as we learned more about the germ origin of many disease and the need for sanitation in medical settings, white became the color of choice. A color that would reassure the patients about the cleanliness of the “environment” in which he /she was being treated. So the color black, a symbol of formality and distance was replaced by the color white, a symbol of purity, professionalism and trust.
Today, as you are cloaked by your faculty you should reflect on the road you have embarked on and the responsibilities you have decided to shoulder as you will graduate and enter a profession that centers on taking care of patients and through which you will play a vital role in their life and the life of their families.
We also had a privilege to have our Deputy Minister of Health in charge of Sciences-Technology and Education – Prof Trần Văn Thuấn as keynote speaker. Prof Thuấn congratulated the initial achievement of VinUni and highlighted that VinUni could contribute more and share experiences with MOH and other universities. Wearing a VinUni white coat, Prof Thuấn also joined the faculty to do cloaking for our first cohort of GME students. Besides key faculty of VinUni/Vinmec, some students also invited their parents to the stage to do the cloaking. VinUni follows this tradition, so then our faculty could hand over the white coat to the father/mother of the students (who needs to be healthcare professional) so that he/she can personally do the cloaking for his/her own son/ daughter as the noble symbol of passing the trust, the responsibility and proud to the next generation of healthcare professionals.
All VinUni CHS faculty and students, together with MOH leaders, honor guests with healthcare background had taken the Hippocratic oath – Declaration of Geneva adaptation. This is truly an emotional moment for all students and their family members, following a long-standing tradition of thousand years of medical profession. Our CHS students now officially embark on their long journey, challenging but also full of joys and humane meaning to become healthcare professionals.
To share the historic moment with VinUni, Senior leaders of University of Pennsylvania sent a special congratulation video. Prof Larry Jameson (Vice President cum Dean of Perelman School of Medicine), Prof. Antonia M. Villarruel (Dean of Nursing School) and Prof. Glen Gaulton (Vice Dean and Director of Center for Global Health) jointly congratulated Vingroup and VinUni leaders, all the faculty, staff and students on this occasion and confirmed Penn’s support.
In the afternoon of Oct 17th, CHS also hosted a Healhcare Education Seminar to share our model of health sciences education, our GME program and the Simulation center. In addition to the MOH leaders and other guests, we had 26 participants from 14 leading medical, nursing, public health, and pharmacy universities throughout Vietnam. The colleagues from other universities then enjoyed our campus tour and the SIM center. They saw with their own eyes the top-notch facility for CHS students, the dormitory as well as other beautiful corners of our campus in autumn time.
