DSU Nursing Holds First-Ever White Coat Ceremony

The DSU Department of Nursing held its first-ever White Coat Ceremony in honor of the latest class of students to be accepted in the Nursing Program.

Twenty-nine juniors celebrated the successful completion of their first two pre-nursing years at DSU, resulting in their acceptance in the program and the subsequent the rite of passage ceremony held Saturday, Sept. 20 in the MLK Jr. Student Center.

The White Coat Ceremony is a new advent for nursing schools across the country. Previously only medical schools held such ceremonies

Funding from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation and its collaboration with the American Association of College of Nursing (AACN) resulted in this year pilot program for such ceremonies to be held by nursing programs.

The Gold Foundation and the AACN selected 100 nursing schools – of which DSU was the only one of two HBCUs and the only nursing school in Delaware – to each receive a $3,000 grant to fund the White Coat Ceremony. There are 750 nursing schools recognized by the AACN.

The White Coat Ceremony is designed to instill a commitment among future nursing health professionals to provide compassion care.

The keynote speaker of the White Coat Ceremony was Dr. Pamela Zuckafoose, executive director of the Delaware Board of Nursing, as well as former faculty member of the DSU Department of Nursing.

The 29 nursing majors – recognized as the “Class of 2016 – took the White Coat Oath, in which they made a commitment to accept the fundamental duties and responsibilities of being a nurse, especially in the areas of compassionate care, the exercising of sound professional judgment, and having of a lifelong obligation for professional improvement.

The chair of the DSU Nursing Program is Dr. Sharon Mills-Wisneski. The department is under the DSU College of Education, Health and Public Policy, which is under the leadership of its dean, Dr. Marsha Horton.