First-year students at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis participated Friday, Aug. 14, in the traditional White Coat Ceremony — a rite of passage in which future doctors are welcomed to the medical school and the medical profession.
In addition to receiving their white coats in a ceremony at the Eric P. Newman Education Center on the Medical Campus, the 123 newly minted medical students recited an oath promising honesty and integrity. With the help of faculty mentors, they wrote the oath as a class.
Pictured below are first-year medical students holding cards that describe what their white coats represent. The cards offer a glimpse at the mindset these future doctors have and expect to build upon.
This year’s entering class has 61 women and 62 men from a total of 59 undergraduate institutions. Nineteen of the students are in the MD/PhD program.
In all, the students represent eight countries: the United States, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. And they come from 33 U.S. states, the largest number from California (21), Illinois (11), Missouri (9), Texas (8) and New York (6).
For the oath and more photos, go to the Washington University White Coat Ceremony website.
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