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MIAMI – The FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine will hold a White Coat Ceremony for its second incoming class on Friday, Aug. 6, continuing the tradition through which medical students formally begin their journey toward becoming physicians.
The ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. at the Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center, located at Florida International University’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus (MMC), 11200 S.W. 8th St., Miami. A reception will follow at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, also at MMC. The events are by invitation only.
Dr. Lynn Harrison, a nationally-recognized cardiothoracic surgeon, will be the keynote speaker. Harrison recently joined the Wertheim College of Medicine as chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery and professor of clinical cardiovascular surgery for Baptist Health South Florida, one of the medical school’s clinical partners. Harrison will help design the clinical experience in heart and lung surgery for FIU’s third and fourth-year medical students.
The 43 students of the Class of 2014 include Andrew Johnson, who was on the University of Florida football team, including during the school’s 2006 and 2008 championship seasons, while pursuing his bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies and biology. Johnson, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, joins a class whose students hail from Florida, California, Michigan, Maryland and Alaska. They have an average GPA of 3.7 and attended colleges across the country, including schools such as Cornell, Georgetown University, Princeton University, and Boston University. Some of the students also are graduates of FIU and other state and private schools in Florida. The College of Medicine received 3,606 applications for this academic year, about 300 more than last year.
“Each of these students will one day serve as an example of the new kind of doctor we are educating at FIU – doctors who are dedicated to their communities and who will practice medicine in a compassionate and comprehensive manner,” College of Medicine Founding Dean Dr. John A. Rock said. “The White Coat Ceremony is their rite of passage, their formal introduction to the art of healing. Once they put their coats on, they will be changed forever.”
At the ceremony, each student will receive a traditional white medical coat. As is customary, the student coats will be short in order to distinguish them from doctors when doing their clinical rotations at hospitals. Each student also will receive a stethoscope, donated by Leon Medical Centers, another of the school’s clinical partners.
A symbolic event introduced in 1993, the White Coat Ceremony was established after a group of distinguished physicians, medical educators and community leaders formed the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.
The Foundation concluded that the beginning of a student’s journey into medicine is the best time to influence standards of professionalism, humanistic values and behavior. More than 100 medical schools in the United States now hold White Coat Ceremonies.
The White Coat Ceremony will be broadcast live at: http://131.94.79.29/asxgen/wmtencoder/live.wmv
Media Contact: Madeline Baró at 305-348-2234.
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Congratulations everyone.