How It's Used

"They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-ha!

To the funny farm. Where life is beautiful all the time and

I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats.

And they're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!"

—Jerry Samuels, "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!"

“It was as though an army of white-coated Balzacs had stormed the university departments and labs.”

—Ian McEwan. Enduring Love. (New York:  Nan A Talese/Doubleday, 1997), p. 53.

“Although there’s been a good bit of research, we don’t fully know whether white coat hypertension is as innocent as it may first appear.  In these days of quick exams by hurried doctors and their busy office staff, it’s easy to get a person anxious and create a false alarm about high blood pressure.”

—Mitchell Hecht, “Ask Dr. H: ‘White coat’ hypertension could be serious,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 11, 1999, p. C3.

“The white-coated crowd with stethoscopes slung casually around their necks would have looked familiar to anyone who has attended morning hospital rounds. Resident physicians and medical students milled about, chatting animatedly, and at the appointed hour, the attending physician signaled to begin.”

—Pauline W. Chen, M.D., “Stories in the Service of Making a Better Doctor,” The New York Times, October 23, 2008.

Links

Related on eAlmanac
Redcoats (British Army)

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on White Coats