School of Health Sciences Holds White Coat Ceremony to Welcome New Physician Assistant Students
The ceremony welcomed 34 students to the Class of 2022 as they begin their path towards completing the graduate program. The students were presented their white coats in a socially-distanced ceremony with friends and family watching virtually via a livestream.
Dean of the School of Health Sciences, Dr. Lou Fincher and program director Christy McGhee and the program faculty welcomed the graduate students and explained the meaning behind the white coat ceremony. The ceremony concluded with students and faculty reciting the Physicians Assistant (PA) Professional Oath.
“This white coat symbolizes the transition to a scientific approach to medicine, a commitment to our patients, a commitment to each other as colleagues, a commitment to your faculty, staff, advisors and mentors, a commitment to your families, to your communities, but most of all to yourselves,” said Professor McGhee in an address to the students.
Clinical activities are embedded throughout the entirety of the 27-month program, with students beginning clinical experiences in their very first week of training at the Mel Leaman Free Clinic at Emory & Henry College School of Health Sciences, located on the Marion Campus. Students will attend the program year-round for 27 months and earn a master’s degree. Physician Assistants are advanced practice medical professionals who practice in every primary and specialty care area in a collaborative relationship with physicians and other health-care team members.
The Physician Assistant Studies program’s curriculum features evidence-based teaching and evaluation methods with emphasis on case-based and experiential learning, incorporating active learning strategies including case-based and team-based learning. Students are from our region and around the country, including Students are from our region as well as around the country, including Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida Pennsylvania, California, New York, and Texas, Alabama, Colorado and Mississippi, Minnesota, Missouri, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, South Carolina, Illinois and Arizona. Fifty-nine students have graduated from the program, working all around the country.
The program, housed in the state-of-the-art facilities on the Marion campus, utilizes a 22 bay clinical skills lab and classroom, a simulation suite with both standardized patient examination rooms and high-fidelity simulation mannequin hospital rooms. Students also have access to a dedicated state-of-the-art cadaver lab. The program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
For more photos from the ceremony, visit https://www.flickr.com/photos/emory_henry/albums/72157715629831548.
Open gallery
This white coat symbolizes the transition to a scientific approach to medicine, a commitment to our patients, a commitment to each other as colleagues, a commitment to your faculty, staff, advisors and mentors, a commitment to your families, to your communities, but most of all to yourselves.
- Professor Christy McGhee