First MSU-Meridian Master of Science in Nursing students receive white coats
Contact: Marianne Todd
MERIDIAN, Miss.—Friends, family and community gathered at the MSU Riley Center last week to witness a historic inaugural white coat ceremony for the university’s first in-state Master of Science in Nursing students.
The event signifies that the 35 students in the program cohort are ready to enter the clinical phase of their education.
Flanked by Dean of Nursing Mary Stewart were community members and supporters. In attendance were The Riley Foundation board members, leaders from Ochsner Rush Health and President of the Board of Trustees for Institutions of Higher Learning Bruce Martin.
“We all chose to start this program because we believe in this community, in Mississippi State University and the power of nursing,” Stewart told an audience of 300. “This group of students, well, you are impressive. Representing a rich diversity of lived experiences, you’ve brought your best selves to this challenge. Thank you.”
Before reciting their Pledge of Professionalism, the students were given “Nightingale lanterns,” symbolic of Florence Nightingale, a Crimean War nurse who carried the lamp at night to check on wounded patients.
Adorning the stage were white columns that had once graced the site of the original Riley Hospital. The columns were recently discovered in an estate sale, bought and refurbished.
Before addressing the students, Stewart thanked donors contributing student scholarships—the White Family, The Riley Foundation, The Bower Foundation, Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation and Mississippi Nurses Foundation, along with Rush Ochsner Heath.
Stewart said, “You’ll be entrusted with taking care of people who need help. They will need your help, and they will trust you to do rightly, to treat them the way that you would want to be treated,” she said. “More so, when they see you in your Mississippi State University uniforms and professional lab coats, patients and other providers will expect excellence. Not perfection, but absolutely respect, integrity and hard work.”
David Buys, associate vice provost of health sciences and interim head of campus, said he felt a sense of pride during the ceremony, “not just in seeing the students get their white coats, but with the speed and quality in which they have risen to this challenge.”
The ceremony was followed by a reception to honor the newly coated students.
For more information on the Master of Science in Nursing program, visit nursing.msstate.edu.
Mississippi State University is taking care of what matters. MSU-Meridian is online at meridian.msstate.edu.