Naomi Girson | opinions editor

As a child, Caitlyn Patton spent a lot of time in front of her television watching forensic science shows and documentaries including “NCIS,” “Criminal Minds” and “The Forensic Files.”

Now, she is a graduate student at Duquesne University’s forensic science and law master’s degree program, with just two semesters left before she is an official forensic scientist herself.

“It’s going to be a very busy year, but I’m very excited for it,” Patton said.

The program is fully certified by the Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission, according to the Duquesne University website, and one of only a handful of schools to have a forensic science program accredited at the master’s level.

As Patton stepped into her fifth year, with a cohort of 24 peers, she attended the Forensic Science White Coat Ceremony on Aug. 30 in the Power Center Ballroom and got the chance to recite their own version of the Hippocratic Oath, titled “Oath of the Scientist.”

The oath was created specifically for the Forensic Science White Coat Ceremony by Pamela Marshall, director and associate professor of the forensic science department.

“We said the oaths. And between the speech that was said, and our core faculty members saying some things, it really did feel like we had officially made that transition,” Patton said.

Although the forensic science department only has four full-time staff members, including Marshall, she said they are a small but mighty team.

“We take this job very seriously, and we want to be the best for our students,” Marshall said.

Each year, Marshall brings in a keynote speaker pertaining to the field like survivors of violence, lawyers and scientists.

This year, they welcomed Mark Desire, who works with the New York medical examiner’s office and identified remains found at Ground Zero on 9/11.

Marshall said it was a full house with friends and family members coming to support the master’s class, as the students donned their white coats.  

Even though Marshall has worked at Duquesne since 2018, the program is only celebrating their sixth annual white coat ceremony.

She said that even though it was a five-year program six years ago, there was no celebration for completing the undergraduate portion.

“There wasn’t anything that said ‘Hey, look, you’re a graduate student, you’ve already accomplished so much and now you’ve got this great year ahead of you,’” Marshall said.

She remembered that in her standalone master’s program, she had a white coat ceremony and wanted to give her students the same rite of passage.

The Oath that she “cobbled together,” covers concepts including scientific integrity, commitment to professional standards and a vow to honor the scientists that came before them, among other statements.

Modern white coat ceremonies were introduced by Arnold P. Gold at Columbia University in 1993, who felt that having students first recite the Hippocratic Oath at their graduation was far too late, according to the Gold Foundation website.

Now, the ceremonies take place at the beginning of the school year for first-year students in a variety of medical professions, from nursing to neurology.

Not everyone makes it to the final year, though. There were once 50 to 60 students in this year’s cohort, according to Patton, but the class dwindled as time went on in the program.

“It’s a difficult program, and when you look around and see you’re basically half the size of what they started with, there’s a reason for that,” said professor Lyndsie Ferrara another core faculty member.

The fifth year brings a more vigorous workload for the students, according to Patton, but it’s not weekly assignments anymore, it’s longer-form work that hopefully transfer to a career in the field.

“This is where we really get into a lot of our research and a lot of job applications,” Patton said. “This is where it gets real for people.”

Evelyn Rudich, another fifth-year in the program, felt the white coat ceremony signaled a new step for the cohort.

Though Patton and Rudich completed their undergraduate program last spring just to find themselves in the same hallowed halls months later, the white coat ceremony brought a new air to their final year in the program.  

“We’re not undergrads anymore. We are held to a certain standard because we are in public safety,” Rudich said. “That’s what I felt like the white coat ceremony symbolized, the next step in our professional career and professional development.”

Naomi Girson can be reached at girsonn@duq.edu