FIU Wertheim College of Medicine to Welcome Class of 2016 in White Coat Ceremony

In a class full of dreams, Olamide Oshikoya’s is unique: to trade one white coat for another.

FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony.

“Although I’m a pharmacist, my dream has always been to enter medicine and help people from the onset,” Oshikoya said. “I’ve realized that as a medical doctor I will be able to have a more personal connection with my patients.”

Oshikoya is one of 120 students who will make up the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine’s Class of 2016.

The class will be officially welcomed at the Wertheim College of Medicine’s fourth White Coat Ceremony, which will take place at 4 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 10, at the Herbert & Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center, located at Florida International University’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus, 11200 S.W. 8^th St. in Southwest Miami-Dade.  In addition to accepting the white coats traditionally worn by physicians, students will take the medical student oath and receive their first stethoscopes, a gift from León Medical Centers, one of the college’s clinical partners.

“Our young college continues to attract outstanding students who are looking to make a difference in the community,” said College of Medicine Founding Dean Dr. John Rock. “This class is a great reflection on our school’s commitment to developing physicians who are culturally competent and community based.”

The Class of 2016 is the largest since the College of Medicine opened its doors in 2009 and was selected from 3,524 applicants. The new students have an average GPA of 3.6 and come from colleges nationwide – including Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, and Duke. The class is split evenly into 60 men and 60 women who come from across the country and around the world, from as far away as Trinidad and Tobago and China.

Most, like Jenesis Negron, are homegrown graduates of FIU and other Florida universities. Negron was born and raised in Miami, and graduated from FIU with a bachelor’s in biological sciences.

Negron said she recently found an old drawing she’d made when she was in first grade at Coral Park Elementary. It was titled, “When I am an adult I will be…a doctor.”

“With the love and support of my family today I am well on my way to accomplishing my dreams,” she said.

For Haitian-born Annie Danna Mercier Rouza, the journey to medical school has been long and difficult. By the time she was 14, both her parents were dead, and she was off to a new family, in a new country and a new language.

Now 23, she lives in Miramar, with the uncle who adopted her, and she speaks English, French and Creole. That should come in handy for Rouza, who said she has the desire to become a physician who will practice in medically underserved areas in the U.S. and around the world.

The quest to make that dream come true begins this Friday, for Rouza and the rest of her classmates.