By Jane Reilly
The White Coat Ceremony for the Class of 2014 took place on Friday, August 6, 2010, in the Airline & Henry Schwartzman courtyard at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick. The ceremony, held at the conclusion of orientation week, highlights the importance of humanistic care, and concludes with the taking of the Hippocratic Oath by all incoming first-year students. RWJMS was the second medical school in the nation to hold a White Coat Ceremony.
The ceremony started promptly at 2 PM as the nearly 125 new medical students proceeded into the vast courtyard filled with their relatives and friends. The ceremony opened with welcome speeches from Dr. Peter Amenta, Dean, RWJMS; Dr. Stephen Lowry, Senior Associate Dean for Education, RWJMS; Jane Reilly, AFF Co-chair; and Beverly Hon, Student Coordinator. Dr. Joseph Bertino, MD, a leading physician/scientist at RWJMS, where he serves as the chief scientific officer and associate director of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, gave the keynote address. Among other points, Dr. Bertino discussed the progress he had personally witnessed in the care of certain cancers, and reminded the students that their patients would be scouring the internet for their medical information. He advised them to tell their patients what Mark Twain once warned those who read too many health books, “Don’t die from a misprint.”
Dr. Daniel Mehan, Associate Dean for Student Affairs, and Dr. Brian Gable, Associate Program Director, introduced the students from the Class of 2011 who were inducted into the Gold Humanitarian Honor Society. The society recognizes and honors those students as exemplars of excellence in compassionate care giving and empathy in the context of medical practice.
Dr. David Seiden, Associate Dean of Student Affairs, gave his own welcoming address and invited the students to come on stage in groups of eight where they were assisted with their White Coats by the following presenters: Dr. Lowry; Dr. Terri Goss Kinzy, Senior Associate Dean of Biomedical Sciences; Dr. Carol Terregino, Interim Senior Associate Dean at Camden; Dr. David Swee, Associate Dean for Education; Dr. Sonia Garcia Laumbach, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs; Dr. Mehan; Dr. Mitchell-Williams, Assistant Dean for Multicultural and Community and Affairs; and Dr. Robert Risimini, Asistant Dean for Student Affairs. The students also received Humanism in Medicine pins donated by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, whose mission is to encourage physicians-in-training to combine the high tech skills of cutting edge medical science and technology with the high touch skills of communication, empathy and compassion.
At the conclusion, Dean Amenta asked the students and medical doctors present to rise and recite the Oath of Hippocrates, followed by a formal recession and reception.
Click here for photos of the Class of 2012
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