368: Proud Father's Moment: Placing the White Coat on Daughter on Her Journey to Becoming a Doctor

Okay, friends, before we get started, we typically release our Monday episodes at six in the morning, because the platform gets distributed to various apps and people listen from all over the world. So I always aim to release the episode at six in the morning. However, we were so exhausted Sunday, from our trip to Arkansas that we just did not have time. And in case many of you don't know, Dr. Riz works more than full time during the week, he stays very busy saving lives. And so that's kept you from being as available.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:09

Yeah, well, when we travel a lot, you know, and take some time off. There's also I still have my work to do. And so things become very busy. Yeah, especially when we when I work during the week and travel on the weekends, not much downtime.

Maya Acosta  02:21

That's right. And we might have told all of you that almost every weekend from like September, October, and then lots of traveling in November, December, but almost every weekend, we will be traveling. And that means that Dr. Riz has to give up some of his Fridays and shift cases around. And that doesn't mean he doesn't have any work when he comes back. If anything, he has more work.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:43

Yeah, my staff is actually groaning at me going when are we going to put all these cases in which means they actually, you know, not I wouldn't call it double bookings. But you know, I get I get still put all the cases in less time. Yes. So I have longer days.

Maya Acosta  02:59

Absolutely. So we appreciate when you can sit down with us and, and do a recording and we might have to figure things out for our Monday episodes for the rest of the year, because we are going to be traveling a lot. I did have this idea that we can record an episode on the drive home in the van you're seeing my easier equipment. So is that a possibility? We could be on the road recording an episode. It'll be a

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  03:27

very interesting recording. Well, oh, there's the buches Okay, are we stopping? Oh, okay. Missed it. Oh, sorry. We missed our turn.

Maya Acosta  03:34

Right. Alright, so we want to tell you guys about our trip. We've been having fun going in our van traveling. These weekends that we have had time to do so resist daughter Yasmine Bukhari got accepted into medical school. We learned about that, I think in August or so. And then the white coat ceremony sort of just, you know, came up. And so we did plan but we didn't plan like six months ago, we planned for this and knew that it was going to be pretty tight for us. And so I want to mention a couple of things before we describe what a white coat ceremony is. Now this that we are not being sponsored by harvest hose. But I want to tell you about harvest hose because we learned about it. I think a year ago at another campsite, other campers told us about it. And this is for anyone who has a rig or even a vehicle that wants to that's traveling and wants to stay at a spot overnight without necessarily being at a campsite for example. So do you want to tell them about harvest Host?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  04:36

Yeah, it's a very interesting program, I guess. Someone had the bright idea of kind of collecting places, or people who volunteer to host recreational vehicles. And it can be something as small and short as ours like which is a you know, a 20 foot or up to two very traditional larger RVs or even fifth wheels where you're pulling a Large camper. And so and so there's various types of places that wish to host campers. And I think you are our viewers really. And the ideas that you're, you know, the hopefully that when you're staying at their place you will patronize or their, their institution, whatever it is. So there's a lot of breweries and wineries and farms with, with shops and museums and museums and stores, and yeah, hanger, which was a hanger Museum and one guy we stayed with at Big Bend, it was a tour guide, he gave Jeep Tours, so and but he had a large amount of land, and he would host our viewers in the hopes that they would use, you know, take his Jeep Tour, which we did. And that was a really fun event. So there's a variety of types of places, although those are kind of the things that you see, and, and they've accumulated 1000s of hosts, all over the country. So if you're going somewhere, and you need some place to stay, to park, your RV, it's essentially free, because they don't charge for parking your IV RV, although hopefully you patronize them and you know, you you've spent some money. So like, you know, if you stay at a brewery, they might, you know, it'd be nice to go in and buy a beer or have a glass of wine or order an appetizer, or something like that.

Maya Acosta  06:19

So harvest host comes in handy if you're not in a hurry to get to your destination. So if you're driving across the country, and you are in a hurry, and your goal is to just stay at a truck stop or at a Walmart, and you're not interested in sightseeing, or having an experience, this may not work for you. For us harvest hose is a nice way of having sort of a getaway when we're staying overnight somewhere. So we're not staying among a bunch of other campers, or RV or anything like that. So the last, when we were in Arkansas, we found a space that it was a brewery. And they offered their parking lot. But there were two other maybe three other rigs very separated from one another. And then people leave the venue. The place shuts down overnight, nice and quiet, no traffic, no one starting their engine in the middle of the night and waking us up. So that's in it's in the middle of nowhere in some of these places. Sometimes you do have to drive off the interstate and drive a couple of miles into that particular place. But it's quite an experience. I like the vineyard that we stayed at once where the family owned the vineyard and they had a restaurant and they sold wine. So it was really nice waking up with poppy and walking him among the grapes. I mean, we didn't actually get in there. But that's quite an experience. And then you talked about the hangar that was fun to we kind of stayed almost like at an airport.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  07:47

Yeah. And then one time we stayed at a at a museum, the petroleum Museum in Midland, we, you know, paid $5 or $6 and saw the museum and learned all about the petroleum industry in the Permian Basin and all that sort of stuff, too. So yeah, it's been there's a variety of places and all very interesting and, and yeah, you can, it can be as simple as you just finding a place to park and stop for the night I've seen. And I know that some people get in at 10 o'clock, and they pack up and leave at five. All they wanted was a place to stop and sleep, which was safe and acceptable and not parking on the street or something. And then there's others who stay longer and enjoy what what's there. And and so for us this spot was literally a mile and a half from the medical college. So it was very convenient for us. It's literally your boondocking Yeah, which means you're not hooked up to electric and water. So you know, and most most people who have RVs they have their water pumps, and they have the ability to manage, you know, with electricity and batteries. And then also a lot of these places allow you to run your generators overnight because they're remote and you're not disturbing anybody.

Maya Acosta  08:52

That's right. We have a built in generator which it's fairly quiet. If you step outside of the van, you can hear it but it doesn't really disturb anyone. And so that allows us to keep the air conditioning system going while we're sleeping. In case you're wondering like how in the world can we be in a camper van while we're still experiencing this heat in Dallas, but yeah, so that's how we got to Arkansas. We drove our camper van we took Papi Chulo with us, and then we headed on over to the college. So we arrived on Friday. Friday night was a family picnic so family and friends joined the medical students and then the next day, early in the day they had the white coat ceremony. I thought I would give you a little bit of history. I have some notes here. So in case you're interested in this college because we found it interesting that you asked me and got accepted and decided to go into this osteopathic school. The Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine also known as our comm is a relatively new medical school in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It was established to address the shortage of The healthcare professionals, particularly physicians in Arkansas and the surrounding region, so our comm was founded in 2014 and is affiliated with the Arkansas colleges of health education that they call it eek. Is that right? A C H

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  10:15

E eight. I'm not so sure I want that name. But yeah.

Maya Acosta  10:19

And it's a private nonprofit institution dedicated to improving health care access in the region. There are two schools and there's so when we were there, during the ceremony, we saw that there was the first class and they are students studying to to receive their doctorate degrees in physical therapy. And then there was the other group das means group, which is the osteopathic medicine they are class of 2027. Oh, they are 2027. The other group is 2026 are calm specializes in osteopathic medicine, which is a branch of medicine that focuses on holistic approach to patient care. osteopathic physicians, also known as a D OHS are trained to consider the body as a whole and emphasize preventive care and the body's ability to heal itself. It's not really cool to know that yes, mean after everything we know about lifestyle medicine, that yes mean, isn't this college?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  11:14

Yeah, I like it. You know, it took took me decades to come around to understanding the importance of lifestyle and prevention in health, as opposed to treating acute and chronic disease. And, you know, so she's going to a medical school that teaches that approach from the very beginning. And I like that.

Maya Acosta  11:36

Yes. So the Community Focus er are calm places a strong emphasis on community engagement and service students often participate in outreach programs and healthcare initiatives to benefit the local community. I ended up taking an Uber over from the van to the convention center for the ceremony. And during that ride, my Uber driver just kept chatting away and telling me all sorts of things about the medical school and because I had mentioned the white coat ceremony, and he told me about specifically about this, how the medical students are very involved in helping at, for example, the local hospital Mercy Hospital, and now he was attended to and supported by some of those medical students.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  12:20

Yeah. And it sounds like they're very proud. The community is very proud of having the medical school there.

Maya Acosta  12:24

Yeah, absolutely. The campus where yes, mean lives is gorgeous. It's like a small little village.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  12:32

Yeah, I was, I was blown away, it's, you know, it's kind of a nice mix of kind of being in nature with the buildings and everything and very nice brand new place, the student housing dormitories are mixed into a kind of a park with a, you know, a little bit of a lake and a creek and walking paths and the actual education buildings, you know, were set off back into a nice open area with lots of trees and things like that. I

Maya Acosta  12:58

know, I was like the, the entire place is surrounded by forests by forests. The campus, our calm includes state of the art facilities, including modern classrooms, laboratories and teaching clinic where students can gain clinical experience. And we asked me and gave us a tour of the college. Amazing.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  13:19

Oh, yeah, I was very impressed. The lecture rooms were just state of the art, as far as we're just state of the art as far as their audio visual equipment. They're coming, every student had communication equipment at their desk, so they could speak to the, to the room. So you're not yelling in the room, if you had to talk. And there's, you know, just it was very, very up to date and modern, which I guess is a, you know, a consequence of being a relatively new medical school. And all these things that which I didn't, didn't have access to 3030 plus years ago, as a student, and then also, they had great learning and visual aids and different things like that in their labs.

Maya Acosta  13:56

Also, I remember the study rooms throughout the area that are designed for students who need that quiet space to focus and concentrate. And yet we know that her class is only about 160 people, those first year students right about 160 students in that school. Well, in the first year,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  14:17

and yeah, and in the second year, so the school the the the didactic portion has about 323 40 students, they had tremendous number of study areas and quiet areas. And I think there's no shortage of places where you can find a place to study high rent or let alone stay in your own room. The village

Maya Acosta  14:35

is just across the street from the university from the school. And so the village itself has like five different restaurants. It has a gym, it has a nail salon and a couple other things a coffee shop so you literally never have to leave that small space there.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  14:55

It's kind of designed like, you know, some of the urban apartments high rises I've seen here In Dallas where, you know, the the upper floors are all residencies but down below is a bunch of retail that's so they have all sorts of retail available to them.

Maya Acosta  15:08

Yeah, it's such a beautiful experience. And I try to video and photograph as much as I can. And I did share a little bit on social media, I'll continue to share a lot more because I used to come back so tired from these trips. So let's talk about the white coat ceremony because this was the first time that I attended one of these events. White Coat ceremonies are a significant and symbolic events held out for first year medical students at many medical schools worldwide. And these ceremonies are a tradition that marks the beginning of a student's journey into medicine. So what is the purpose? What's the symbolism behind all of this? So the ceremony marks the transition from pre clinical coursework to clinical training emphasizing the importance of patient care. In some instances, they do recite the Hippocratic Oath. In this case, I am going to read to you the the osteopathic oath, the students are welcomed. Sometimes they may have a guest speaker in this sense, I think it was one of the students and then the students are presented with their white coat. And it's either done by someone from staff, like a staff member, or a loved one if the family member happens to be in medicine.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  16:24

Yeah, that was, you know, we didn't have white coat ceremonies when I was in medical school. I think they started in subsequent years and have become more popular. And I think it's a great, a great thing. It's kind of a nice ritual, it's a rite of passage. It's very exciting, you know, you can become proud of what you're doing and you know, just re energizes you and reminds you of what you're what you're what you're doing there. Because medical school can be very, very draining and taxing. And you know, you're just sitting there with your head down studying on a daily basis. And this is maybe a nice reminder of oh, I'm becoming a doctor. And which, you know, sometimes you can probably forget when Yasmine told me that because I me her father was a doctor, I get to actually go up on stage with her and put the white coat on her. I was very touched. So yeah, it's pretty cool that they let parent physicians placed the white coat on their child.

Maya Acosta  17:14

I thought it was so beautiful. Yes. What would you say the ratio if there were I don't know how many students at the time that were white coded because we have the combination of the osteopathic students and the physical therapy students, would you say there were about 300

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  17:29

total, but both of them probably 225.

Maya Acosta  17:33

Okay. And you would you say one in 10 was coded by someone that is also a physician in their family? Yeah,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  17:40

I think there was about 20 parents in that reserved area to do the coding

Maya Acosta  17:45

is so beautiful, you guys, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to the video that I put on Instagram of when Yasmine walks up to the to the microphone and says, I'm a student doctor and I'm being coded by my father doctor. I think she said Rizwan Bukhari MD, or something like that. So I thought that was really cute. So like Riz said, you know, it's a rite of passage. It's instilling a sense of responsibility, professionalism. It's like they're being reminded of this role that they will have as healers. And I almost feel like this white coat ceremony should happen soon after they receive that letter of acceptance into medical school, because that's when you want to party and you want to celebrate, but this happened, what, two months into their first semester. So anyway, it's a way for the community to celebrate these future doctors. Of course, I got emotional. Just, you know, just thinking about how since I met, yes, mean she was young. I don't remember 1213 I don't remember but she has always wanted to be a doctor.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  18:51

Yeah, I'll tell you the convention center was full of very proud parents and family members place was packed. So you know, it's a great idea. People are very excited and happy to go there and celebrate their loved ones. Ascension into medical school.

Maya Acosta  19:07

Yes, yes. Okay, so they were classes of 2026 and 2027. And yes mean is, you know, she'll complete medical school in 2027. I also wanted to read the osteopathic pledge of commitment. It says as members of the osteopathic medical profession in an effort to instill loyalty and strengthen the profession, we recall the tenants on which this profession is found that the dynamic interaction of mind body and spirit, the body's ability to heal itself, the primary role of musculoskeletal system and preventive medicine as the key to maintain health. We recognize the work our predecessors have accomplished and building the profession and we commit ourselves to continue that work and then they recited I pledged to provide compassionate quality care to my patients. Partner with them to promote health, display integrity and professionalism throughout my career, advanced the philosophy, practice and science of Osteopathic Medicine, continue lifelong learning support my profession with loyalty in action word indeed, and live each day as an example of what an osteopathic physician should be, you know two things about Yasmine. She's always been a very strong and dedicated student, strong in science and math from what I remember, throughout the years very dedicated student, and then she's always had a heart for volunteering. She's done overseas work. Yeah, she's

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  20:39

traveled to Central America a couple of times when she was both a high school student and a college student, and she participates in Habitat for Humanity did a lot of volunteer work at like the Children's Hospital, a Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas. And then, you know, also does a lot of work with animals, especially cats.

Maya Acosta  21:00

Hmm, that's right. Even in her during undergrad, she would rescue cats. And even recently, she adopted a cat. She would rescue cats, and she would foster cats. Yeah. And fostering them. And so she has a true heart for helping people. And so you know, we just wish her a lot of luck in all of this. I did say to you risk that I would love for her to come on the podcast in the future when she gets settled in. So in about a year or so maybe less, when she's built some momentum, because right now it can feel chaotic, you know, learning to live alone in her own apartment, figuring out food, because you know, she's staying very busy right now.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  21:41

So she's lost a lot of weight. Yeah,

Maya Acosta  21:43

she's already that's what medical school does. She just the

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  21:47

medical students early on are just fighting to keep their head above water,

Maya Acosta  21:51

which is hardest medical school or residency. Oh, residency is harder. Oh, man, I was hoping you wouldn't say that much. Okay, it just gonna be a lot of work and dedication for her as she goes through all the training that she'll need.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  22:05

Yeah, residency is harder, because it demands more time and energy, but it's more rewarding because you're actually practicing medicine.

Maya Acosta  22:15

That's right. Isn't there now some sort of regulation that ensures that residents are not putting in more hours than they should?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  22:24

Yeah, there are. There are laws that have limited the number of hours that residents can work per week, and also a number of continuous hours that they can work. It's still not that balanced. But it's getting better. Yeah.

Maya Acosta  22:37

Well, we hope that yes, mean we'll manage things and make it through. She's a very bright student. I know that she's recently told you just in the first two months, she's doing well. She's She's competitive in the sense that she wants to be one of the top students.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  22:52

Yeah, it's interesting. She'll say, Yeah, I did. I did above average on that test, which, but you can hear the disappointment, because she wants to be she wants to say that she had the highest score in the class. Yeah, I think she's doing great. Yep.