The University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine welcomes 170 newly admitted first-year students into the medical field Friday, Aug. 5, during the colleges 21st annual White Coat Ceremony, held at 10 a.m. at Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut St., Cincinnati.
Each member of the class of 2020 will be presented with a white coat symbolizing entry into the medical profession; the UC Alumni Association provides the coats as a gift. The white coat is also a symbol of the patients these students will treat and the compassion, honesty and caring to which the students should always aspire.
This is the second consecutive year that slightly more women than men have been admitted into the College of Medicine, says Abbigail Tissot, PhD, assistant dean for admissions in the college. Fifty-one percent of the class (86 students) is female while 49 percent (84 students) is male. About 15 percent (25 students) of the incoming class consists of individuals from underrepresented minority groups, the highest percentage ever in the College of Medicine.
Tissot says 35 percent of the incoming class is from out of state while 65 percent consists of Ohio residents. The average cumulative undergraduate grade point average for the class is 3.76 and is the highest recorded for an incoming class in the College of Medicine. Of the incoming medical students, 25 received their undergraduate degrees at UC.
"They are our brightest class to date and our most diverse class in terms of their ethnic identity, and undergraduate major, says Tissot. "Members of the class of 2020 are broad thinkers, brilliant scholars, diverse in experience and background, and perhaps most importantly, they are so good-hearted.
The White Coat ceremony will include remarks from College of Medicine Dean William Ball, MD, and UC Interim President Beverly Davenport, PhD. The keynote address will be presented by Alan George Smulian, MD, UC professor of internal medicine and director of the Division of Infectious Disease.
Smulian is also the recipient of the 2016 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award presented by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. The Tow award recognizes individuals who emphasize humanism in the delivery of care to patients and their families. Smulian obtained his medical training at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he completed both medical school training and an internal medicine residency. He then completed an infectious disease fellowship training at the University of Cincinnati.
Smulian established a clinical HIV program at the Cincinnati Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center which focused on comprehensive patient-based care. This multidisciplinary team based approach has led to an HIV program that has provided the top rated HIV care within the VA for many years. In addition to building this HIV program, Smulian established research programs in Pneumocystis and Histoplasma and more recently in HPV-associated anal dysplasia and appropriate antibiotics use. He was appointed Chief of the Infectious Disease Section at the Cincinnati VA in 2000 and division director at University of Cincinnati in 2011.
At the end of the White Coat ceremony, the new class will carry out another annual tradition at the College of Medicine by reading its own unique "Oath of Professionalism, written by students during their orientation week. Andrew Filak, MD, senior associate dean for academic affairs at the UC College of Medicine, Aurora Bennett, MD, associate dean for student affairs and admissions, and Mia Mallory, MD, associate dean for diversity and inclusion, will then present each student with a white coat.
William Barrett, MD, president of the UC Medical Alumni Association and professor and chair of radiation oncology, will present each student a humanism pin as they depart the stage to wear on their new white coat.
The White Coat Ceremony will be the culmination of Orientation Week for the Class of 2020, which started Aug. 1. Classes for medical students officially start Monday, Aug. 8.
