No, I think that it is the magic of the white coat. Given ceremoniously to them on matriculation, they must feel that the coat will protect them from much worse than the weather. (Forty years ago, in my day, there were always a few patients admitted for diagnostic workup or in lengthy recuperations from a stroke or coronary event-no longer.) Now, as they handle patients with resistant tuberculosis or AIDS, it must shield them from those deadly diseases. Perhaps even more important, how could these young people face so much human suffering-cries of pain, wasting away, the blood and deformity of disease-seen in any modern hospital, without their magic white coats as shields for their souls? It was only recently that they spent their days with the healthiest of people, college companions, among whom sickness (other than football injuries) was a rarity. Now every day is spent in the company of the very old and very vulnerable, who serve to erode their sense of youthful immortality.

They have probably seen death before: grandparents for sure, parents perhaps, and even friends. But not up close, day after day, in such quantity and such awfulness. And all of this is seen with eyes blurred by the fatigue of study and call. Never before have they felt so ignorant, so helpless, and so vulnerable themselves. They need something that will sharpen the distinctions between their patients and them. The patients are the fragile ones; they must be strong and vigorous.

So, as they rush along the cold streets from one building to another, from one patient to another, they appear impervious. Some may think that they are cloaked in denial. I prefer to think that they are cloaked in magic.