A total of 46 first-year General Medicine students, including 17 Qataris, of Qatar University College of Medicine (QU-CMED), took the oath and donned the symbolic white coat in the first Annual White Coat Ceremony.
The event aimed to celebrate the first-year General Medicine students who successfully completed their transition year and entered the Medicine programme.
It was designed to acknowledge their commitment to the profession and reassert values of compassion, professionalism, and dedication to patient care as they enter the
profession.
The ceremony on Saturday drew over 150 attendees including Qatar’s former minister of public health and cardiologist Dr Hajar Ahmed Hajar al-Binali, QU vice president for Medical Education and CMED dean Dr Egon Toft, CMED interim associate dean for clinical affairs and deputy chief of staff for Graduate Medical Education at HMC Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, Qatar Council for Healthcare Practitioners acting CEO and Accreditation Department manager Dr Samar Aboulsoud, as well as CMED students and their families, faculty, and staff.
Dr Egon Toft described the White Coat Ceremony as a milestone at which the medical community welcomes students as future doctors. He reminded the students that the medical journey is long and marked by one milestone after another.
Dr Hajar Ahmed Hajar al-Binali gave a short speech as encouragement for medical students, congratulating them on their choice of medicine as a profession of the future.
He enumerated the virtues of the medical profession and its humanitarian role in relieving the pain of patients, maintaining their health and helping them to enjoy life.
He touched on the history of medicine and how it evolved from the days of the Arab Abbasid period when the doctor was familiar with most of his time sciences and knowledge such as philosophy, astronomy, pharmacology, poetry and music.
Dr Hajar presented to the students his personal advices he gained from his experience when he was a student at the medical school of the University of Colorado in US.
Then ended his speech saying: “Now, having reached an advanced age, if I went back to boyhood and returned to your age, and had to choose between different professions, I will choose this honourable profession, the medical profession again.”
Student Shahrier Rafiq told the audience of his pride to be part of CMED, saying: “In this era of innovation, CMED offers a brand new curriculum that creates physicians with utmost efficiency by providing a crucial guidance and training.”