Pinning ceremony

Dranger · Jun 14, 2015

I hope not, I disliked it even when I had just graduated. Pinning is specific to RNs as a tradition it has nothing to do with being a medical provider. A white coat ceremony is more appropriate.

Trauma Columnist · Jun 14, 2015

Moved to student NP forum

happyinmyheart · Jun 14, 2015

I believe that some schools do a white coat ceremony

guest538567 · Jun 14, 2015

My program had participation in the regular university graduation but not pinning. You are hooded at the graduate level which does not occur in an undergraduate ceremony.

lhflanurseNP, APRN · Jun 14, 2015

Mine does a pinning and hooding. I could care a less about the pinning...did that when I got my RN years ago, but the hooding is unique to the graduate degrees.

elkpark · Jun 14, 2015

At my MSN commencement, we were each handed the school's pin along with our degree but there was nothing like a traditional pinning ceremony. As noted, "pinning" is connected with (initially) becoming a nurse, so it wouldn't really apply to graduate programs (I suppose the issue is more complicated with direct-entry (for non-nurses) graduate programs; but my school had a large direct-entry contingent and there was no mention of a pinning ceremony).

Fewer and fewer schools are doing pinning ceremonies, even at the undergraduate level. The original pinning ceremonies were the graduation ceremonies of hospital-based diploma schools -- now that TPTB have been largely successful in moving nursing education out of hospitals and into colleges and universities, the graduation ceremony is the college's or university's commencement ceremony. More and more schools see a separate pinning ceremony for nursing graduates to be redundant and unnecessary (and it really fries college/university administrators that so many nursing students skip the commencement ceremony but want to have their own private ceremony). As much as I treasure the memories of the pinning ceremonies at my hospital-based diploma school (where the ceremonies were the official, only graduation ceremony), I agree with that point of view.

Jory, MSN, APRN, CNM · Jun 18, 2015

Ours does the pinning for all of the MSN programs and the FNP's go last. After they do the pinning, they do the white coat ceremony for the FNP's and then the blessing of the hands for everyone.