School of Medicine
The University of Kansas School of Medicine Welcomes Class of 2010
Aug 13, 2006
The University of Kansas School of Medicine welcomed the class of 2010 at the White Coat Ceremony August 4, 2006, in Battenfeld Auditorium on the University of Kansas Medical Center campus. |
| Dean Barbara Atkinson welcomes Tanya Kajese to the KU School of Medicine during the White Coat ceremony Aug. 6, 2006. |
Faculty and staff presented each student with a short white coat that symbolizes his or her student status and new membership in the medical community. The White Coat Ceremony initiates students to the ideals of medical professionalism – altruism, accountability, excellence, duty and service, honor and integrity, and respect for others. The School of Medicine sponsors the ceremony to foster professionalism and empathy in medicine. Students and faculty members concluded the ceremony by standing together to recite the Oath of Commitment.
Selected from a competitive field of more than 1,600 applicants, these175 students have an average undergraduate grade point average (GPA) of 3.66; 86 percent are from Kansas. Since 1905, more than 9,500 physicians have graduated from the KU School of Medicine.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
The Class of 2010 is the first to learn medicine using the School’ s new curriculum, which integrates the clinical, scientific and social bases of medical practice. This year, each entering student received a tablet computer, which assures access to a variety of educational materials anytime and anywhere – in lecture halls, small group rooms, study areas and libraries.
Also new this year, the KU Medical Alumni Association and KU School of Medicine are reaching out to incoming students through a new mentoring program called White Coat Connection. The program matches practicing physicians with first-year medical students. Each physician mentor will have the opportunity to help a new student make a smooth transition into medical school and throughout their four years of study. Mentors have regular contact with their student and can choose to purchase the student’s first white coat.
“We each have had an influential mentor in our careers, and now it is our turn to pass our wisdom on to the current students, the future of our profession,” says Garold Minns, MD, president of the KU Medical Alumni Association and a physician mentor through the White Coat Connection.
GETTING TO KNOW THE COMMUNITY
The White Coat Ceremony brought new student orientation week to a close. Orientation activities included M1 Volunteer Day, where first-year medical students spent a day volunteering with charities across Wyandotte County.
John Lantos, MD, provided this year’s keynote address, “Medicine in the Twenty-First Century: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times.” Lantos is section chief of General Pediatrics at the University of Chicago and former president of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities. He currently serves as co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. He has been active in many bioethics, medical ethics and pediatric research organizations on both the local and national levels.
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