Wear D
Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown 44272, USA.
Ann Intern Med. 1998 Nov 1;129(9):734-7. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-129-9-199811010-00010.
White coat ceremonies are a recent phenomenon in medical education. Selected as a symbol by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to impress upon medical students the importance of compassion and humility, the white coat has had a long association with all things medical, scientific, and healing. It is also associated with the attributes of purity and goodness traditionally symbolized by the color white. Thus, its selection as the material focus of the white coat ceremony seems natural. This article situates the white coat ceremony as a curricular event and suggests that, in addition to having the meanings cited above, the white coat has other meanings that fall into the realm of the hidden curriculum--it can symbolize caregiving hierarchies and spheres of practice, the social and economic privilege of physicians, and medicine's well-established practices of determining membership in the profession. Finally, this paper suggests several other ceremonies or rituals that may be better than the white coat ceremony for encouraging compassion and humility in medical students.
白袍仪式是医学教育中最近才出现的现象。阿诺德·P·戈尔德基金会选择白袍作为一种象征，以让医学生铭记同情和谦逊的重要性，白袍长期以来一直与医学、科学和治疗的所有事物相关联。它还与传统上由白色象征的纯洁和善良的属性相关联。因此，选择它作为白袍仪式的物质焦点似乎是自然而然的。本文将白袍仪式定位为一项课程活动，并指出，除了具有上述含义外，白袍还有其他属于隐性课程范畴的含义——它可以象征护理等级制度和实践领域、医生的社会和经济特权，以及医学确定职业成员资格的既定做法。最后，本文提出了其他一些仪式，可能比白袍仪式更能有效地鼓励医学生具备同情心和谦逊品质。
