Media Invitation: Eastern's first nursing students to take oath and receive white coats

Media Invitation: Eastern's first nursing students to take oath and receive white coats

Inaugural ceremony commemorates beginning of clinical journey

by Ed Osborn

Willimantic, CT (01/13/2025) - Members of the media are invited to Eastern Connecticut State University's first Nursing White Coat Ceremony on Jan. 23 at 6 p.m. in the Fine Arts Instructional Center Concert Hall. The ceremony signals the beginning of a nursing student's clinical education.

Twenty-eight Eastern nursing students are eligible to participate in the ceremony, a first for Eastern's new Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program. As the students begin their nursing clinical education, they will be studying gerontological nursing with clinical experiences at two clinical sites: Pierce Memorial Baptist Nursing and Rehabilitation and Westview Health Center.

At the ceremony, a professional oath will be taken, witnessed by family, friends, clinical partners, and members of the Eastern community, when the official white coat is received. This same coat will be worn at the nursing pinning ceremony as students conclude their nursing education at Eastern prior to graduation.

The ceremony will include:

• Remarks from Eastern President Karim Ismaili and Terrence Cheng, chancellor of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities
• Remarks from Nursing program faculty and staff, including Assistant Department Chair Amy Bataille and Christna Nadeau, director of clinical education
• Keynote address by Christina Cote, nurse manager at Generations Family Health Center
• Presentation of White Coats and Pins to students
• Presentation of the "Nursing Oath to Compassionate Patient Care" by Lindsay Boucher, nursing clinical coordinator

"As a nursing student, crossing the threshold into nursing clinical practicum is a major accomplishment in the nursing education journey," said Christina Nadeau, director of clinical education of Eastern's nursing program. "While the occasion is monumental for the nursing students, it is also an occasion to come together as a community to share in the excitement of a new class of nursing students heading out into the world of healthcare to share their healing touch and compassion with others."

Lindsay Boucher, RN, nursing program clinical coordinator, was instrumental in bringing this important ceremony to Eastern's new program and inaugural cohort of clinical students. "This ceremony is a symbolic and momentous occasion for nursing students as they begin their clinical journey in the nursing profession," said Boucher. "This ceremony will infuse the process of beginning to form their professional nursing identity woven with the essential threads of the human connection and caring part of nursing."

The original White Coat Ceremony was initiated in 1993 at Columbia University's Vagelos Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons by Arnold P. Gold, MD, who was a professor and pediatric neurologist. A passionate advocate for humanistic healthcare, Gold believed that the oath taken by new physicians at the end of medical school came too late. Through the nonprofit organization that he and his wife, Dr. Sandra Gold, started, The Arnold P. Gold Foundation has expanded the White Coat Ceremony around the globe and into multiple healthcare professions.

Today, nearly every medical school in the United States, hundreds of nursing schools, and many other health profession schools around the globe participate in this tradition of humanistic care. The expansion of this rite of passage places emphasis on the commitment of all healthcare team members to provide safe, compassionate, collaborative, evidence-based and patient-centered care beginning on the very first day of training.

"This ceremony is so important because it requires each student to publicly commit their intention to care for every patient with compassion," said Dr. Kathleen Reeves, president and CEO of the Gold Foundation.

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