White Coat Ceremony

Yesterday Benjamin started medical school!!! He has orientation all week and this coming Monday he starts actual lectures. I attended his White Coat Ceremony. The new dean gave a really good and encouraging talk about how medicine is changing for the better. He compared old medicine to Captain Kirk and new medicine to Captain Picard. Thirsty years ago, they were training doctors to be more than human, to be superhero’s who tried everything to save everyone and never slept or took breaks. Thirty years ago a med student would never be able to ask the attending physician questions on rounds without getting told, “that is just the way we do it and have always done it. Don’t ask any more questions!” Now, things are more systematic, allowing less room for mistakes, because doctor’s, after all, are humans. Decisions are made as groups of physicians. Doctor’s and med students aren’t being worked to death without any sleep. Questions are encouraged, rather than banned. Instead of being told to look to their left and right and one of those people will not make it to the end, they were told that they would almost all make it. It was very encouraging and exciting.

Then each of the 264 new medical students was called by name to walk across the stage and receive their first white coat. Then everyone recited the Ohio State University Physician’s Oath.

Here they are placing the coat on him. It was hard to get good pictures from up in the balcony.

Here he is walking off the stage looking like a proper doctor!

At the end a little acapella choir sang the Ohio state song and at the end, when everyone sings O-HI-O, the med students all formed the letters with their hands.



Benjamin with his new friend Tyler, who is in our ward and lives in our apartment complex.


I love this picture, even thought Benjamin’s eye’s are closed.

I have a million pictures of Benj, pulling silly faces.

Another silly face.

Yet, another silly face before the ceremony.



I am so proud of my husband for making it this far. I think he will be an amazing doctor someday!

Afterwards, there was an ice cream social. The ice cream was from a shop called Graeter’s. I have been wanting to get ice cream there since we have moved here, but I heard it was kind of expensive. At the ice cream social, they had tons left over, so we each ate two containers and hijacked a bunch more containers. It is delicious ice cream!!! Between the ones we ate there and the ones we brought home we got Peach, Raspberry Sorbet, Chocolate Chunk, Black Raspberry Chip, Mango Sorbet, Buckeye Blitz (chocolate ice cream, chocolate chunks, and peanut butter cookie dough), mint chocolate chip, and strawberry.