Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine is hosting its annual White Coat Ceremony with a hybrid platform this year to welcome the Class of 2025.
The event will be held in-person at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 19, in Beasley Coliseum on the Pullman campus. The ceremony will also be livestreamed on the college’s YouTube channel.
Unlike other veterinary colleges that provide white coats to students in their fourth year, WSU’s first-year veterinary students have received their clinical white coats at the ceremony for more than 20 years.
The White Coat Ceremony was established by Dr. Arnold Gold at Columbia University Medical School in 1993. WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine became the first veterinary school to adopt the ceremony in 1999.
The ceremony highlights the veterinarian-patient-client relationship. The event also acknowledges among graduate veterinarians, these students are now becoming peers in the profession. Upon taking the Veterinarian’s Oath, the ceremony encourages veterinary students to accept the obligations inherent in the practice of veterinary medicine: to be excellent in science, compassionate, and lead lives of uprightness and honor.
