Compassion is key to providing exceptional medical care. Dr. Versha Pleasant delivers the keynote address for the Gold Humanism Honor Society Induction Ceremony at the University of Michigan, in which she asks: what are you wearing? She explains how— in the same way that doctors put on the physical white coat— physicians must also choose to wear compassion.

The choice of compassion becomes sustainable only through habit. It is not something we do only once but over and over again, day after day, year after year. We should be compassionate when it is easy, but we should be particularly compassionate when it is not. This is especially when we must take the extra time to extend a reassuring touch, offer a tissue, simply wait and listen.  

It is a relief to acknowledge, though, that compassion is not an arrival point. It is a journey that we must constantly be trying to perfect while simultaneously knowing that we will never arrive at perfection. Putting on a white coat and reciting the Hippocratic Oath does not necessarily ensure that the wearer immediately take on the qualities of a good doctor. However, wearing the coat serves as a symbolic reminder that we can and must be better. While we may not be perfect doctors or work within a perfect system, we can and should always choose compassion.

Photography courtesy of Tafari Stevenson-Howard