UA News

The ceremony marks the entrance to medical school for the UA College of Medicine class of 2013.

A student from India who grew up on the Navajo reservation and a career-changing former tenured faculty member in communication were among the incoming University of Arizona students who participated in the annual White Coat Ceremony on Friday. 

As they embarked on their quest to become the physicians of the future, 115 first-year UA College of Medicine students who will attend classes on the Tucson campus recited their class mission statement and donned white coats for the first time, acknowledging their entrance into the medical profession and the special bond they will develop with patients, colleagues and teachers.

The students began medical school on Aug. 3.

Nearly 500 students were interviewed to fill the 163 slots in the Class of 2013 – 115 on the Tucson campus and 48 on the Phoenix campus. 

The class includes 88 women and 75 men, with an average age of 24. The oldest student is 45. Their grade point average is 3.67 on a 4.0 scale and 13 percent are underrepresented minorities.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Vincent A. Fulginiti, former chancellor and professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the UA and an internationally recognized expert on the adverse effects of the smallpox vaccine. 

Fulginiti, who is retired and lives in Tucson, founded the UA department of pediatrics and served as its head from 1969 to 1985. He also served as interim dean of the UA College of Medicine from 1988-1989. Fulginiti's presentation was titled, "Individual Choices: The Essence of Professionalism."

The White Coat Ceremony was co-sponsored by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, a public foundation established in 1989 to foster humanism in medicine, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

The ceremony was initiated in 1993 by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.  "By establishing this meaningful ritual at the beginning of medical school, students become aware of their responsibilities from the first day of training," according to the foundation.