MSU-Meridian Physician Assistant Studies students receive first white coats

Contact: Marianne Todd

MERIDIAN, Miss.—In a longstanding tradition, 25 Mississippi State University-Meridian Master of Physician Assistant Studies students received their first white coats on Thursday [March 13], signaling their readiness to move from the didactic phase of education into clinical rotations.

The ceremony was held with hundreds of family members and friends in attendance at the MSU Riley Center. The occasion featured a brief history lesson from Ed Smith, assistant teaching professor, who spoke about the emergence of the white coat into the medical field.

Being the image of medical cleanliness and purity, the white coat gained momentum and became standard garb for surgeons by 1915 following the unveiling of painter Joseph Eakins’ renowned painting “The Agnew Clinic” from the University of Pennsylvania in which a physician was depicted wearing a white coat while performing surgery.

“For the student, this is a sense of accomplishment,” said Shey Washburn, PA program director. “They are now ready to launch out to care for patients. They must learn and display extraordinarily high levels of professionalism and empathy.”

After receiving their coats, the cohort recited the Pledge of Professionalism in Medicine, a promise to consecrate their lives to humanity.

“I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug,” the group pledged.

MSU-Meridian’s PA program seated its fifth cohort in January with students selected from the most competitive applicant pool to date. These students will go on to earn their white coats next spring.

The 32 incoming students join 58 contemporaries currently enrolled in Mississippi’s sole PA program, where students receive hands-on training in the state’s only provisionally accredited Interprofessional Simulation Center, a state-of-the-art learning facility equipped with realistic patient settings.

For more information on MSU-Meridian’s PA program, visit meridian.msstate.edu/pa or phone 601-696-2320.

Mississippi State University is taking care of what matters. MSU-Meridian is online at www.meridian.msstate.edu.