MY WHITE COAT MEANS VOCATION
There is a quote attributed to Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J. that speaks of love. It goes, “Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."
This is what the white coat means to me. Sure, I’m not always thrilled that medical school is what I do with my evenings and weekends, but nothing else makes me feel more grounded, more myself. I have fallen in love with medicine, with my future patients, with the act of healing and the act of sitting with others in their suffering, in their humanity. To me, this is vocation.
-Katherine Wikholm, MD Candidate, Class of 2019