LHU announces plans for White Coat Ceremony
Major milestone for Physician Assistant students
April 26, 2012
The Lock Haven University Physician Assistant Program will hold its annual White Coat Ceremony on at 12:30 on Friday, May 4 in Price Performance Center.
Traditionally the White Coat Ceremony provides an important acknowledgement of the students' progress and dedication to helping patients. It marks the end of the program's didactic year and the beginning of clinical training, celebrating the students' pursuit of the profession. For the first time, these students will put on their white coats, the symbol of humanism and professional ethics in medicine.
Keynote speaker for the ceremony will be Gordon Huie, MPAS, PA-C. Entitled: “The Physician Assistant during Times of Calamity and Terrorist Attacks,” Mr. Huie’s talk is a moving narrative of what he did on 9/11/01 as a survivor of Tower Two and as a Physician Assistant. His talk to the Physician Assistant students will focus on learning lessons from our past, and meeting the challenges of the future.
Mr. Huie is a visiting professor and has been an orthopaedic lecturer at Lock Haven University for the last three years. His military background includes being a combat medic in the US Army, and being a medical officer in the US Air Force during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. He is well published in various journals and books and is often an orthopaedic lecturer at national (AAPA), and local State meetings. He is on staff at Hackensack University Medical Center, Emergency Trauma Department, as the Research Coordinator and as the Clinical Manager for Performance Improvement. He has been a PA practicing Orthopaedic surgery since 1984.
A highlight of the ceremony will take place when the Physician Assistant students take the White Coat Pledge, administered by Program Medical Director Dr. Michael Greenberg.
The White Coat Ceremony had its origins at Columbia University Medical School and is sponsored nationwide at medical colleges and PA programs to promote humanism in medicine.
The LHU ceremony will include students from the four sites at which Lock Haven University offers the Physician Assistant Program: the LHU main campus in Lock Haven, the LHU Clearfield Campus, the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg, and Charles Cole Memorial Hospital in Coudersport.
Lock Haven University is a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), the largest provider of higher education in the commonwealth. Its 14 universities offer more than 250 degrees and certificate programs in more than 120 areas of study. Nearly 405,000 system alumni live and work in Pennsylvania.