UHAS Holds 3rd 'White Coat' Ceremony for 73 Medical Students

By Alberto Mario Noretti

Ho — THE third 'White Coat Ceremony' of the School of Medicine of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), Ho, took place on the main campus here on Wednesday.

In all, the third batch of 73 medical students of the university who had successfully completed their pre-medical training, were decorated with white coats and stethoscopes to mark the clinical phase of their training on the hospital wards.

The White Coat ceremony is a rite of passage symbolising the gate the medical students pass through at the start of the path to becoming doctors.

It also signifies professionalism and compassion in patient care with a pledge by the students to serve as their patients' advocates, educating them and empowering them as guardians of their own health.

The Guest Speaker, Prof. Kwabena Antwi Danso, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the School of Medicine, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi said "This is a solemn occasion and time for deep reflection, introspection and commitment to patient care and service to humanity."

Prof. Danso said that by the White Coat, they were expected to demonstrate maturity, responsibility, attitudinal modelling and the appropriate communication skills required of physicians of patients care.

Pursuant to that, he urged them to acknowledge and cherish their status as a formidable mass of persons who had already dedicated their lives to the health and wellbeing of humanity.

"This is the time when you are formally and routinely coming into contact with patients in the hospital setting and also in the community in a professional but trainee-level doctor-patient relationship," the guest speaker stated.

He reminded the students to adhere to adequate tuning, continuous self-improvement and self-assessment as vital skills for the job.

"You have made a life-long commitment to help the sick, prevent disease, promote health and offer rehabilitation as the case may be, and that means working assiduously towards it", said Prof. Danso.

Earlier, Prof. John Owusu Gyapong, Vice Chancellor of UHAS, said that with the White Coat, the medical students were ready academically and psychologically to begin the clinical phase of their training.

"During this phase, they will be made to apply their knowledge in the basic medical sciences when they come into contact with patients on the wards and in the operating theatres", he explained.

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