Medicine, great privilege and extraordinary responsibility

It is precisely in the wards of Policlinico Universitario “Agostino Gemelli” IRCSS that the fourth-year students will now officially enter, wearing their new white coats: “You are about to meet, treat and care for all your patients and it will be in the wards that you will experience what we will soon begin to experience here: a precious intergenerational passage, a transmission of values and knowledge, thanks to your teachers and professors.”, Prof. Sgambato said.

“This day marks a great change in your personal and professional lives” ‒ added Don Alessandro Mantini, Professor of Theology and Pastoral Assistant on the Rome campus. “Yours will not just be a job, but a vocation: you will be dealing with fragile, vulnerable people, and this white coat truly represents your mission: to always recognise and care, along with health, for the dignity of each of your patients.”

Retracing the origin and history of White Coat ceremonies around the world, the Coating ceremony on the Rome campus was introduced by Professor Giovanni Gambassi, President of the Degree Programme in Medicine and Surgery: “Today’s ceremony marks the beginning of an extraordinary journey for you students of Class 2027, a journey that will challenge, inspire and transform you into the doctors of tomorrow. Now all of you, wearing your white coats, will experience a sense of a new journey and an immeasurable confidence, passed on by those who have come before you.”

“I am convinced” ‒ Gambassi concluded ‒ “that you students of the Class of 2027 as doctors will light the way with pioneering ideas and revolutionary solutions to combat disease, alleviate suffering and bring about positive change around the world. Most importantly, you will relentlessly cultivate a desire to make a difference in the lives of individual patients by providing them with the best care with empathy, integrity and professionalism.”

And, wearing their white coats, the students listened excitedly to the Keynote address by Professor Shah who, retracing his own biography, first as a student and then as a doctor and professor, conveyed with conviction and passion the main values of being a doctor: solid preparation, continuous teamwork, a careful look at the sick person, an overall vision in the clinical approach, continuous updating in innovations and technologies, courage and wisdom in making choices, and great confidence in oneself and one’s own abilities.

At the end of the ceremony, the solemn proclamation of the Hippocratic Oath led by Dr. Camilla Marandola, Alumna of the Class of 2023, with the words that over the millennia have summed up the essence of the art of medicine, which is both caring for the sick person and taking care of the sick person in science, compassion and conscience: at the same time, indeed, a great privilege and an extraordinary responsibility.