Veatch R M
Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA.
J Med Ethics. 2002 Feb;28(1):5-9. doi: 10.1136/jme.28.1.5.
A "white coat" ceremony functions as a rite of passage for students entering medical school. This comment provides a second option in response to the earlier, more enthusiastic, discussion of the ceremony by Raanan Gillon. While these ceremonies may serve important sociological functions, they raise three serious problems: whether the professional oath or "affirmation of professional commitment" taken in this setting has any legitimacy, how a sponsor of such a ceremony would know which oath or affirmation to administer, and what the moral implications of this "bonding process" are. I argue that the initiation oath is morally meaningless if students are not aware of its content in advance, that different students ought to commit to different oaths, and that bonding of students to the medical profession necessarily separates them from identification with lay people who will be their patients.
“白袍”仪式是医学院新生的一种成人礼。这一评论是对拉南·吉利翁之前对该仪式更热情讨论的回应，提供了另一种观点。虽然这些仪式可能具有重要的社会学功能，但它们引发了三个严重问题：在此场合所宣誓的职业誓言或“职业承诺声明”是否具有任何合法性；此类仪式的主办方如何知道该执行何种誓言或声明；以及这种“凝聚过程”的道德含义是什么。我认为，如果学生事先不知道入会誓言的内容，那么它在道德上是没有意义的；不同的学生应该承诺遵守不同的誓言；而且学生与医学专业的联结必然使他们与将成为其患者的普通民众产生身份认同上的分离。
