20 Trinity students welcomed at White Coat Ceremony

The Trinity School of Medicine welcomed the class of 2015 at the 12th White Coat Ceremony at the Peace Memorial Hall on Monday.{{more}}

Having completed pre-med studies, 20 students began the next stage in their journey, and have now taken on the challenge of becoming student doctors.

And most importantly, the students have answered the call to service, this according to Dr Douglas Skelton, Vice Chancellor at the Trinity School of Medicine and the evening’s keynote speaker.

“I want to tell you, it is a call to serve and you will note that in years to come, when your phone rings at 3:00 a.m., you will be called to service,” he said, adding that they will be called everyday for the next four years and called to master the sciences required to provide services as a healer.

He explained that the white coat ceremony marked the passage from being a student to being a student doctor and symbolizes their responsibility and commitment that go with the medical profession.

“So you are in a unique position with a litany of responsibilities and commitments which if honoured by you, will bring honour to you and care to your patients,” Dr Skelton said.

He however warned that if the students refused to honour the profession then it will bring harm to the patients and eventual shame on them as doctors.

Dr Skelton asked the students to recognize the white coat as an important symbol, in the same way that a nation’s flag is a symbol.

“They are symbols like the white coat. They remind you of the loyalty to your country and the white coat is a symbol; you will put it on and take it off but the responsibility to medicine and to your patients when you put on that coat remains forever,” he explained.

“So the white coat is a symbol and a very powerful one.”

There are a few key elements that people in the medical profession needed to possess, these include compassion; “if you are not compassionate towards others then you should not be in this profession.”

Confidence, he said, that the students needed to ensure that they mastered the skills of the profession and collaboration; medicine is a team profession and you must maintain respect for patients and colleagues regardless to gender, race, sexual orientation or age.