UKCOP One of First Pharmacy Schools in the U.S. to Recognize Graduate Students at White Coat Ceremony
The time-honored tradition of the White Coat Ceremony has served as an opportunity for members of the pharmacy community to welcome students into the profession. Every fall, the incoming class of pharmacy students at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy is presented with a white coat to symbolize the beginning of their professional education.
This year, the College of Pharmacy will become one of the first colleges of pharmacy in the nation to recognize and coat their graduate students along with incoming pharmacy students at their annual White Coat Ceremony. All coats were provided through gifts from alumni, faculty, staff, students, and friends of the College.
“Including graduate students who are pursuing their PhD in pharmaceutical sciences demonstrates to the larger healthcare community the importance our College places on cross-collaboration between the practice of pharmacy and the science that drives drug development, advances in therapeutics, and the improvement in patient outcomes,” said Dave Feola, director of Graduate Studies, and an alumnus of the College’s PharmD and PhD programs.
Integrating the ceremony was an intentional move by the UK College of Pharmacy, intended to demonstrate the translational work of the pharmacy program and recognize the need for transformative patient-centered care that happens along an entire spectrum.
“The White Coat serves as a symbol to the larger community of our students' commitment to patient care as they join the pharmacy and scientific communities,” said Kip Guy, dean of the UK College of Pharmacy. “My hope is that this cohort of students will understand the duty we have as healthcare practitioners and scientists to push for the betterment of our communities.”
While many students may not wear coats in their day-to-day work, the white coat has long been a symbol of one’s commitment to healthcare and service. The UK College of Pharmacy continues to integrate its programs so incoming students are able to learn from one another and collaborate across disciplines to further help the people of Kentucky.
The College welcomes 141 new pharmacy students, 13 new graduate students, and one postdoctoral master’s student. The event can be live-streamed online.
We wish to remember and honor those who inhabited this Commonwealth before the arrival of the Europeans. Briefly occupying these lands were the Osage, Wyndott tribe, and Miami peoples. The Adena and Hopewell peoples, who are recognized by the naming of the time period in which they resided here, were here more permanently. Some of their mounds remain in the Lexington area, including at UK’s Adena Park.
In more recent years, the Cherokee occupied southeast Kentucky, the Yuchi southwest Kentucky, the Chickasaw extreme western Kentucky and the Shawnee central Kentucky including what is now the city of Lexington. The Shawnee left when colonization pushed through the Appalachian Mountains. Lower Shawnee Town ceremonial grounds are still visible in Greenup County.
We honor the first inhabitants who were here, respect their culture, and acknowledge the presence of their descendants who are here today in all walks of life including fellow pharmacists and healthcare professionals.