FSU PANAMA CITY TO HOST WHITE COAT CEREMONY FOR DOCTORAL STUDENTS

Students in the Florida State University Panama City program for Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice will mark the transition from classroom to clinical settings on Wednesday with the prestigious White Coat Ceremony.

The ceremony signifies entry into the second phase of study in FSU Panama City’s nationally accredited DNAP program. Attended by family and friends, the event celebrates their move from classroom to in-hospital patient service. For the remainder of the program, DNAP students will work in one of 23 operating rooms and outpatient sites across the Southeast.

“The impetus for developing this ceremony came from the desire to recognize the hard work our nurse anesthesia doctoral candidates put into preparing for their clinical training in anesthesia,” said Lonnie Hodges, assistant program director. “These candidates spent multiple years preparing to become registered nurses, have worked at the bedside in critical care units providing for the needs of their patients, and have completed the first year of didactic study in their doctoral education to include intensive training in the simulation lab.”

Students begin by learning basic principles of anesthesia, biochemistry and physics, anatomy and physiology, and pharmacology. Before receiving their white coats and dispersing to clinical sites, the students spend countless hours in simulations, learning to insert IV lines, perform spinal blocks and epidurals, deal with complications, and use ultrasound equipment.

The White Coat Ceremony, first initiated at Colombia University in 1993, symbolizes a significant step along that path. More than 360 nursing programs across the country participate in this ceremony. 

FSU PC’s White Coat Ceremony will be at 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 30, in the St. Joe Community Foundation Lecture Hall at the Holley Academic Center, 4750 Collegiate Drive, Panama City. News media are invited to cover the event.

For more information about DNAP, visit pc.fsu.edu/nap.