College of Medicine welcomes new class

On August 8, 2014, the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine welcomed its Class of 2018 at the annual White Coat Ceremony, a modern medical school ritual that officially sets students on the path to becoming physicians.

As the name of the ceremony implies, it’s where medical students get their first white coat, a shorter version of the long white coat they’ll get when they graduate as doctors. The 120 students in the Class of 2018 were selected from a pool of more than 4,000 applicants.

This is the HWCOM’s sixth class, and the first to comprise more female than male students (61 women, 59 men). This class also includes more FIU grads, 21, than any other prior class. Eighty-two percent of the students are Florida residents, but represent 20 different countries outside of the United States.