Johns Hopkins Hospital Interns Will No Longer Wear Short White Coats

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Breaking with tradition, first-year residents at Johns Hopkins Hospital will no longer wear a shortened white coat. The coat was meant to symbolize that they were still learning and weren't true physicians until they spent their first year caring for patients.

According to our media partners at The Baltimore Sun, the newest class of residents in Hopkins' Osler Medical Training Program will wear the same, longer coats other residents wear. Younger generations of residents were finding the different coats increasingly offensive and felt it unnecessarily distinguished them from the other residents.

The director of the residency program, Dr. Sanjay Desai, sent an email to residents explaining the coat doesn't promote the same values it was intended to promote and has changed to represent a physical symbol of the past.

"All institutions have to adapt to stay relevant and to ensure their traditions continue to uphold their core values," he said in the email. "It would be a mistake for us not to."

The new coats will debut in July.

Follow @CBSBaltimore on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook