VCU news

By Joe Kuttenkuler

WHAT:            The 184 students beginning their first year at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine will participate in the annual White Coat Ceremony. The culmination of a three-day orientation program, the White Coat Ceremony is a School of Medicine tradition in which senior faculty members cloak the first-year students in their first white coats. The students also recite the Hippocratic Oath, which articulates doctors’ responsibilities to their patients.

This year’s keynote speaker is pediatric neurologist, Donald W. Lewis, M.D., an alumnus of the School of Medicine and an associate professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Lewis, who also practices at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, will speak to the students about compassion and empathy in delivering medical care.

WHERE:        Medical Sciences Building auditorium on the VCU’s Medical Campus, 1225 E. Marshall St. To accommodate the students' family and friends, the ceremony will also be broadcast to Rooms 104 and 105 in the Medical Sciences Building and to the Baruch Auditorium in the Egyptian Building.

WHEN:          Aug. 12, 2 p.m.