White Coat Ceremony

[orthotech85]

I have been fortunate to be accepted to a PA program, and as part of their incoming student paperwork we are asked to provide how many guests we will have attending our white coat ceremony. My question is who usually comes to these things? Should I just bring my fiancee or should I invite my parents? Not sure what the etiquette would be. Thanks!

[rev ronin]

It's less monumental than a graduation ceremony, but both significant other and parents sound like good folks to invite to me.  My rule of thumb would be anyone who played a significant part in you getting to that point would be a good person to invite, so definitely parents, probably SO as well.

[fakingpatience]

I think a lot of it depends how far away your family is.  I didn't invite anyone to mine, because all my family is across the country; it was maybe 50/50 in my class for people having family/ SO there

 

eta:  My white coat ceremony was early on during the didactic year

[MT2PA]

SO/family.  I told my family not to come since graduation weekend (in 2 years) will require a longer stay and is more important anyway.  FWIW our ceremony was about an hour so I'm glad my family didn't spend money on plane tickets and hotels just for that when I had plenty of studying to do anyway.

[newton9686]

We don't do our white coat until the end of didactic year. So it's kind of a big deal here. We celebrate completing the hardest year of our lives and the opportunity to start of the most exciting year of our life. So I told my whole dang family they need to be there, but again we are different.

[Skraemer]

My program also doesn't do White Coat until the end of the 27 months of didactic! I really like it this way because it feels like I've really earned it and its definitely something to celebrate. So important people in my life will definitely be there. 

[UGoLong]

Mine was halfway through the second semester, just before we started seeing friendly patients in a local nursing home. I invited my wife and family. My wife stayed over and we took a nice cruise down the river that flows past the school. Nice time.

 

Don't ever miss a chance to celebrate a happy milestone! The next day, I was back to the books.

[Lauren R]

Invite both fiance and parents!  I invited 6 people that are very close to me.  Most people in my class invited spouse, parents, grandparents, siblings, children etc.  I don't think anyone brought friends.