Media Advisory: UB medical school holds first long white coat ceremony for medical residents

BUFFALO, N.Y. — To celebrate their transition from medical student to resident, 200 University at Buffalo medical residents, most of them new to Western New York, will don the long white coats that indicate they have graduated from medical school.

The event, the first of its kind at UB, is being held at 3:45 p.m. today, June 23, in the Center for Tomorrow on UB’s North Campus.

On-site media contact: Ellen Goldbaum, 716-771-9255.

Today’s event was planned in collaboration with UB”s Richard Sarkin/Emeritus Faculty Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, which launched the tradition of holding white coat ceremonies in the 1990s to symbolize that humanism remains at the core of all medical care. 

In addition to receiving their long white coats at today’s ceremony, medical residents also will recite the Hippocratic Oath and the UB Resident Code of Conduct.   

Students entering the UB School of Medical and Biomedical Sciences receive short white coats at a ceremony in early August, which serves as a bonding experience with the profession.   

“The long white coat represents another rite of passage where graduates have earned the right to wear the garb that labels them as physicians,” said Roseanne Berger, MD, senior associate dean for graduate medical education. “This coat symbolizes the wearer’s responsibility to be trustworthy, caring and committed to professionalism. Today’s ceremony underscores the ethical foundation of the medical profession and doctors’ obligation to patients.”

Medical residents are “matched” with a residency program where they train in a medical or surgical specialty from three to seven years.  In Buffalo, medical residents provide patient care under supervision of UB faculty in hospitals and clinics.

“The 200 medical residents at today’s ceremony chose UB and Buffalo as the institution and city that offered them an opportunity where they could grow and contribute as clinicians,” explained Berger.

In 2012, UB was chosen as a pilot site for a Resident Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, one of the just 10 medical schools in the nation to be so honored.