On Aug. 27, more than 70 nursing students from the Barry University College of Nursing and Health Sciences Class of 2016 took part in their first White Coat Ceremony. Dr. Jessie Colin and Terri Rocafort placed the white coats on these advanced practice nursing students representing a rite of passage for students who have completed their first academic year and entering into their clinical practice.
The White Coat Ceremony developed from modest beginnings in 1989 at the University of Chicago Prisker School of Medicine and now is utilized by many professional health care fields to symbolize the induction of the student into their chosen health care career. The white coat is symbolic of professionalism and humanitarianism of which both confer the privilege of rendering patient care.
Barry University Chaplain, Father Cristobal Torres, blessed the student’s hands and Dr. Anthony Umadhay presented them with a stethoscope.
The ceremony concluded as students recited the Nightingale Pledge. This modified "Hippocratic Oath" was composed in 1893 by Mrs. Lystra E. Gretter and a Committee for the Farrand Training School for Nurses, Detroit, Michigan. It was called the Florence Nightingale Pledge as a token of esteem for the founder of modern nursing.
I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.