Photo Gallery
White Coat Ceremony, August 2003
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| On Aug. 14, the 184 students in the Class of 2003 were cloaked in their first white coats by members of the school’s senior faculty, marking the beginning of a students’ four-year journey toward attaining their medical degree. |  |
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Paul Fairman, M.D., a pulmonologist in the Department of Internal Medicine, spoke to the students about the importance of compassion and empathy in delivering medical care. During the ceremony, the students together recited the Hippocratic Oath, which articulates a doctor’s responsibilities to his or her patients. |
| The students’ white coats are intended to serve as a reminder to students that they are now representing the medical field. Pictured: incoming students Matthew Walsworth, Daniel Barrett and Piya Barkley. |
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Through the medical school’s Foundations of Clinical Medicine Program, first-year students begin learning skills such as medical interviewing and the basics of a physical exam. The program allows students to see examples of these skills first hand when they accompany preceptors in clinical settings. Pictured: Michelle Whitehurst-Cook, M.D., and Dean H.H. Newsome, Jr., M.D., help Carrie Forstmann and Daniel Blachman into their coats. |
| Among the 184 first-year students are a number whose parents or grandparents are alumni or faculty of the medical school. Incoming student Jonathan Hlivko—whose father Thomas J. Hlivko, M.D., was a member of the Class of 1972—is here helped into his coat by Hugo Seibel, Ph.D., associate dean for student activities. |  |
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After the ceremony, students gathered with their families and friends to enjoy a reception on the Medical Sciences Building plaza. |
| Outside of the Egyptian Building, first-year students Robin Bhavsar, Sohaib Mohiuddin, Krishna Mukkamala and Shahbaz Malik stop for a photograph. The four were enrolled in VCU’s pre-med/med school Guaranteed Admissions Program, which requires students to fulfill the requirements of the Honors Program, maintain a cumulative 3.5 G.P.A., and complete 120 hours of health-care experience each year along with a semester of mentorship with a medical faculty member. |
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