Rethreading tradition: Creating an alternative to the white coat ceremony

The white coat ceremony was created at Columbia University in 1993 as a ritual for medical students to pledge their commitment to the values of the profession of medicine, including exceptional care (Mitchell et al., 2020). The white coat itself became recognized as a symbol for healing and purity, but some have argued that it also highlights perceived hierarchical differences between physicians and people in other health care roles in the medical model (McLean et al., 2023).