The White Coat

I will be honest and admit that I did not really understand the importance of the 'coating' at the end of the first year of dental school. It didn't help that Kevin kind of blew it off as just another day at school. Nonetheless he invited his parents and they were happy to come up and enjoy a little 'coating' ceremony.

Turns out it was kind of a big deal. Everyone dressed up and the guests filled the auditorium for the ceremony. The white coat means that the dental students are now entering the clinical part of the schooling, or in other words it means they survived there first year of book work and will be doing more lab work from here on out.

So why a white coat? According to a speaker at the ceremony "White coats became popular in the early 1900’s to symbolize sterility, cleanliness and a new wave of scientific medicine.  Before then, supposedly doctors wore black coats and were associated with death or bad news." In the 1900's doctors were not well respected and were believed to have crazy healing ideas. Then they turned to more of a science background and therefore adopted the science lab coat.  So now they honor them when they make the transition with a white coat.

All I know though is white coat or not, I sure love this handsome man and am so proud of all his hard work he has put into dental school.