How and when did Cornell’s White Coat tradition begin? When I became dean in 1997, I had never heard about this symbolic coating of medical students at the beginning of their professional education, though it had been inaugurated by Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons four years earlier.  Members of Class of 2012 celebrate their new white coatsDecember 4, 2010. Washington State University’s veterinary college had also adopted the practice and,...