Memories
May 12, 2026
Greetings,
It is with great ebullience that I welcome you to the Morehouse School of Medicine chapter of By These Healing Hands Ceremony of the Ladies and Gentlemen of The White Coat Society Spring 2026 Celebration. This will be our sixteenth Spring celebration dating back to 2011 when we first celebrated at Butler Street Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the two subsequent years at Grady Hospital, our main clinical training site since 1990.
The ceremony was organized to celebrate the basic core of who we should be as change agents in communities and in relation with patients. In 2008 a class challenged Dr. Marvin Crawford on how we celebrate our great treatment and heartfelt care for patients. The response was that after you do it, you ritualize it to say this is what we believe and who we are. The ceremony was written and stored till 2011 when MSM was declared the most socially conscious AAMC med school. The writer felt it was an opportune time, though not yet embraced by MSM, to launch with the encouragement of Walkitra Alexander, who is now Dr. Walkitra Smith, Associate Professor of Family Medicine, pushing it and helping to plan it with Ms. Kersni Stewart, our first non-healthcare provider inductee.
At our first ceremony in 2011 the faculty and administration joined in high celebration as they welcomed our first 34 students under the direction of the founder and writer of the ceremony. The church provided the space, refreshments, the well wishes, and, along with our faculty, applauded and embraced every student. The enthusiastic reception by the church and encouragement propelled us to continue the ceremony. As the church members expressed, “We think all doctors should make a public declaration to show love towards their patients and treat them humanely.” The ceremony over the subsequent two years was held at Grady. At Grady, Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, in 2014 after observing an overcrowded Grady auditorium for the celebration, welcomed us with open arms and support to the main campus. Since our inception, we have inducted over 450 students, faculty, and nurses, including our President, Academic Dean, other deans and most of our chairs.
As always, we focus on what is happening in our nation and world that is antithetical to making healthcare available to all people. The recent challenges from the political scenes in the USA concerning increasing unemployment through massive layoffs, global conflicts in Venezuela and Middle East leaving thousands without healthcare, threats of hunger because of SNAP provisions delays or discontinuation, rescinding the affordable healthcare act, immigration policies with jailing of ill migrants and violence against innocent citizens stagnate healthcare equity from becoming a reality. We simply respond by lifting our voices and move swiftly in joining with others who promote equity and justice for all.
Let Our Hands Move To Heal
Let Our Hearts The Pains Of the Masses Feel
Let Our Hands Move To Heal That All People May Live
Yours in Healing,
Marvin L. Crawford, MD, M.Div., FACP Founder & Chief Celebrant
History
This ceremony, born of the writer’s love for liturgy and ritual as a vehicle of cohesion and celebration of common ideas and principles, was first presented to the Morehouse School of Medicine 3rd year Internal Medicine students in 2006 who thought the idea of celebrating our commitment to compassionate caring was great and should be implemented. Marvin L. Crawford, MD, MDiv, FACP, Internal Medicine Clerkship Director, wrote the ceremony. It was an appropriate time for the most prominent medical school, Morehouse School of Medicine, to kick off an event that celebrated compassion since the school had been cited by the New England Journal of Medicine as being the most socially conscious medical school in America. Since May of 2011, the ceremony has taken on a life of its own with the hope for expansion to other socially conscious medical schools who want to celebrate the compassionate healthcare provider.
History Continued
Symbols
Los Curanderos Gown—Green trims for medicine
• Right lower pocket—small book symbolizing knowledge
• Left lower pocket—an item symbolizing clinical skills or area of expertise—stethoscope
• Left upper pocket—badge symbolizing compassion— our heart
Stoles & Cords
Symbolizing compassionate caring
Our symbol is an Aesculapius on a rod. The Egyptian symbol of healing at the top of the Aesculapius is a set of open hands, indicating by these hands healthcare shall be extending to all the world.
Rituals
This ritual marks the beginning of what will become the pivotal ceremony celebrating the commitment to compassionate care for healthcare providers and researchers, administrators and advocates.
A group of multicultural, chosen, active healthcare advocates or providers and for all students who present themselves as symbols of charity, service and compassion. All inductees pledge to heal through deeds that will close the healthcare equity gap.
Order of Celebration
Processional
Anthem*
Invocation
Welcome .
Occasion
Litany*
Musical Selection
Words of Hope
Role of Charitable Giving
Role of Community Service .
Role of Compassion in Healthcare Delivery
“Lift Every Voice & Sing.”
Chevienne Jones, DMin
Jeromey Beaman
SGA President
Cinnamon Bradley, MD, FACP
Associate Dean, Student Affairs
Sandra Harris-Hooker, PhD
Interim Dean
Jarius Garner
Naomi Coles
Marvin Crawford, Jr.
Paige Harper
Julia Vasquez-Gonzalez
Aron Collier
Order of Celebration Continued
Commitment Pledge .
History, Purpose and Symbols
Faculty & Healthcare .
. . Inductees Induction
Student Induction .
Commitment Oath .
Marvin L. Crawford, MD Chief Celebrant
Marvin L. Crawford, MD Chief Celebrant
Marvin L. Crawford, MD & Faculty BTHH Inductees
David Anderson, MD, FACP
Senior Founding Member and Professor of Medicine
The Approbation Ceremony . Marvin L. Crawford, MD Chief Celebrant
Musical Selection . .
Angelita Howard, PhD in Ed
The Veneration Ceremony . . . Marvin L. Crawford, MD
Word of Thanks . .
. By These Healing Hands
Presentation of Awards . . . . . By These Healing Hands
The Cloaking of Pictures . . . . By These Healing Hands
International Anthem of . . . . Healthcare Providers
Benediction*
Recessional . .
Marvin L. Crawford, MD Chief Celebrant
James McCoy, MD, FACS
“Let Our Hands Move To Heal” Original Hymn”
Cheviene Jones, DMin
Purpose
To celebrate our newly matched medical students’ commitment to uphold the social mission of healthcare through compassionate caring, charitable giving and community service for all people, especially the underserved and extension of healthcare to all the world.
The Litany
Leader: Honor those who provide healthcare for they are instruments of their Creator.
People: We will honor
Leader: Pray that they do it with compassion and in the spirit of humility.
People: We will pray
Leader: Pray for their success in understanding, preventing, diagnosing and treating disease.
People: For them we pray
Leader: Remember healing comes from on high and medicine from the earth; forever give thanks to the Creator.
People: We give thanks
All: Pray that their hands move to heal, and God’s people live.
The Benediction
And on this day, O God, we have lifted our hands to become instruments of your healing powers.
So blessed are our hands that will comfort mothers and hold newborn babies.
Blessed are our hands that will cradle children and guide adolescents.
Blessed are our hands that will maintain the health of adults.
Blessed are our hands that will hold the hands of seniors.
Blessed are our hands that will comfort those who return unto you.
Let us go now to heal your people.
Amen
Let Our Hands Move to Heal
1. Let our gifted hands move to heal, And let all our deep love to feel
To help all God’s people to live
Prolonging their days, new hope we give.
2. Broken hearts we will feel
Compassion let us daily live
Open our eyes to see deep care
Reveal our sacred skills to share.
3. Let outstretched arms embrace, Healing all genders, ages and race.
Let healthcare take its rightful place,
Avail to the entire human race.
4. Keepers of healing gifts
Let us practice and never tire.
May our minds new knowledge hear
Cure sickness far and sickness near.
Let Our Hands Move to Heal
5. When our calling over,
Retire white coats on our open doors.
To the apprentice our skills pass
Perpetual healing to last.
Refrain:
Let our hands move to heal, Let our hands move to heal, Let God’s people live. Across the land, over the sea, healing will be for you and me. Let our hands move to heal.
Lyrics: Marvin L. Crawford, Sr.,
Tune: Marvin L. Crawford, Jr.,
Let Our Hands Move to Heal
Let our hands move— to heal
Let all deep love— to feel
To help God’s people all to live
Prolong their days, new hope— we give
Let our hands move to heal—
Let our hands move— to heal
For Broken hearts— we feel
Compassion let— us live
Open our eyes to see deep care
Reveal our sacred skills— to share
Let our hands move to heal—
Let our hands move— to heal
Let outstretched arms— embrace,
Healing all age— and race
Let Our Hands Move to Heal Continued
Let healthcare take its rightful place,
Avail to the whole hu—man rac.
Let our hands move to heal—
Let our hands move— to heal
Keepers of heal—ing gifts
We work and nev-er tire
May our minds new deep knowledge hear
Cure sickness far and sickness near
Let our hands move to heal—
Let our hands move— to heal
And when our call—ings done,
Retire white coats— on doors.
To students near we pass our skills
Perpetual healing they will give
Let our hands move to heal—
Let our hands move— to heal
Let Our Hands Move to Heal Continued
Refrain:
Let all God’s people live
All— God’s peo—ple live—
Across the sea— and o’er the fields—
Let our— hands move to heal
Lyrics: Marvin L. Crawford, Sr.,
Re-Arrangement: Oliver Nathan Greene, PhD
“I, (state name), will use my gift of knowledge, clinical and technical skills and my divinely guided will to deliver compassionate healthcare to all, regardless of ethnicity, creed, religion, gender or socioeconomic status.
I will use my resources and influence to obtain healthcare for all especially the underserved. I will promote compassionate care, passionate scholarship and practical applications of knowledge to close the healthcare gap. By these hands, this I will do”.
Commitment Oath
Lift Every Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, felt in the days when hope unborn had died; yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet come to the place for which our fathers died?
Lift Every Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson
Continued
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; thou who hast by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the White Coat Society” 2025 Student Inductees
Ladies and Gentlemen of the White Coat Society 2026 Faculty Inductees
Nicolas Bakinde, MD . . . . . . . . . . Internal Medicine
Ebony Caldwell, MD . . . . . . . . . Associate Professor & Researcher
Sandra Harris Hooker, PhD . . . . Professor of Research Administration
Angelita Howard, Ed. D, MBA . . Professor of Administration
Gloria Richard-Davis, MD . . . . Professor & Dean
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the White Coat Society” 2025 Student Inductees
Ladies and Gentlemen of the White Coat Society 2026 Honorary Inductees
James McCoy, MD, FACS . . . . . . . Professor of Surgery
John Patrickson, PhD . . . . . . . . . . Neurobiology
Mrs. Sherry C. Craig
Ladies and Gentlemen of the
White Coat Society
2026 Student Inductees
Keyera Ashe . . .
Internal Medicine
Victoria Asuquo . . . . . . . . . . . . Family Medicine
Justin Baker. . . . . .
Jazmine Baylor . . . .
Jeromey Beaman . .
Dasia Byas
Michara Chataigne .
Pediatrics
. . . . Family Medicine
. Internal Medicine
Psychiatry
Family Medicine
Mari Chiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Family Medicine
Naomi Coles-Strickland . . . . Internal Medicine
Aron Collier . . . . . .
Nina Collier . . . . .
Adrian Day .
Zion Eberhart
Alyssa Edgar .
Kusona Fortingo
Jarius Garner . .
Zada Grandberry
Chelsea Green
General Surgery
. Diagnostic Radiology
Emergency Medicine
Dermatology
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Internal Medicine
Neurological Surgery
Pediatrics
Family Medicine
Ladies and Gentlemen of the White Coat Society
2026 Student Inductees Continued
Loren Hardeman . . . . . . . . . Psychiatry
Paige Harper . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Surgery
Aasha Henderson . . . . . . . . Family Medicine
Kiara Huff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anesthesia
Chiamaka Ijebuonwu . . . . Anesthesiology
Melissa Issa Boube . . . . . . . General Surgery
Mikaela Jarrell . . . . . . . . . . . . Emergency Medicine
Tamiah Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . Family Medicine and Psychiatry
Tianna Milligan . . . . . . . . . . . Emergency Medicine
Ayanna Muhammad . . . . . Pediatrics
Samiyyah Muhanmnad . . Internal Medicine
Tyra Mussington . . . . . . . . . . Pediatrics
Sarah Nault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Internal Medicine
Zhuri Nisseau-Bey . . .
Janya Oglesby.
. . . . General Surgery
Pedicatrics
Onyinye A. Okonma . . . . . . Internal Medicine
Lionel Ouonkap. . . . . . . . . . . General Surgery
Ladies and Gentlemen of the White Coat Society
2026 Student Inductees Continued
Brandon Parkinson . . . . . . . . . Family Medicine
Janya Oglesby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pedicatrics
Tsvetomira Peykova . . . . . . . . Pediatrics
Alyssa Presley .
Sydney Ragland .
Rachel Reid Oderinde .
Kyra Robinson .
. . Anesthesiology
Emergency Medicine
. Family Medicine
. General Surgery
Berlandson Saint Julien . . . . Internal Medicine
Simone Salter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Psychiatry
Jeremy Shropshire . . . . . . . . . Internal Medicine
Kyra Tito . .
Kamryn Toney
Julia Vasquez-Gonzalez
Domonique White
Prishae Wilson.
Zoe Wilson . . .
JaNia Yates .
. Diagnostic Radiology
Child Neurology
General Surgery
Family Medicine
Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery
Neurology
Radiology
Selection Criteria for Healthcare Providers, Faculty and Others
Provides healthcare to an array of persons, especially the underserved for 10 years or more; demonstrates compassion in their encounters with patients, students, staff and others; models compassionate caring, charitable giving and community service; and promotes compassion as the highest virtue of healthcare.
The People Will be Healed
• Marvin L. Crawford, MD M.Div., FACP
Chief Celebrant and Founder
• Saunder Reid, Program Manager
• Ephraim Thomas, Program Coordinator
• Office of Department of Medicine Administrative Team
• Department of Admissions & Student Affairs
• Department of Medical Education
• Office of Information Technology
• Student Government Association
• Department of Medicine
• Family & Friends
Special Thanks
• James A. McCoy, MD, FACS
• David Anderson, MD, FACP
• Victor Blake, MD, FACP
• Administrative Services
• Office of the President
• Office of the Dean
• Office of Institutional Advancement
• Office of Admissions & Student Affairs
• Office of Medical Education
• Marketing and Communications
• Department of Information Technology
• Ladies and Gentlemen of the White Coat Society