A future medical student is in their final year of MCHS’ BioMed program, a big stepping stone to getting into medical school. A ceremony is held to celebrate these seniors who completed all four years, and who plan to become part of the medical field. With anxious anticipation, they step forward into their future career.

The White Coat Ceremony is a celebration of a student’s completion of all four years of MCHS’ Bio Med program. BioMed teacher Leah Pelletier explains what the BioMed program and White Coat Ceremony is.

“White coat, is obviously something that you typically see doctors and healthcare professionals wearing, but the significance of it is that it’s kind of a rite of passage into the next part of their educational career, or their future career,” said Pelletier. “So for our purposes, it’s students that have completed all four years of our biomedical science pathway and are headed off into the next steps. And so it’s honoring that accomplishment that they’ve had of taking an additional science course and on top of the required ones that is focused on preparing them for their futures.”

While the program has worked well, fourth year classes have changed this year and will be different for the future.

“Right now with the fourth year classes as they go out and they shadow different biomedical healthcare related jobs,” said Pelletier. “Now we’re gonna be adding a biomedical innovations course, which is the fourth course for Project Lead the Way that will be like our science research base class, so they’ll be doing their own science research, and then we’re also adding into that a CNA certification, a certified nursing assistant program, where they’ll at the end of that be able to get certified and start working as a CNA, which then they could continue working and get a job right out. of high school, or they can be using that as kind of a stepping stone towards a nursing or a physician degree as well.”

Students are excited about the upcoming ceremony.

“The white coat ceremony is kind of like the epitome of the biomedical pathway here MCHS,” said senior Reilly Byron, a student on the BioMed pathway. “I’ve been involved in this course for four years. It started with principles of biomedical science, then it was human body systems, medical interventions, and this year is medical residency.”

Medical residency is something a student has to apply for in order to get into the fourth year of BioMed, and about 30 students from MCHS made it in. The fourth class will not give college credit until the revised class next year. Students shadow medical professionals at hospitals and medical centers.

“I kind of saw a future and my fellow classmates,” said Byron, “and, [realized], oh my gosh, one day this will be them and like the medical pathway, like they’ll become doctors, nurses, and I think it’s just like a really kind of cool thing that it really gives you perspective on your future.”