FIU medical students to get their `white coats

The White Coat Ceremony -- a medical school ritual held before classes officially begin -- arrives Friday at Florida International University.

That's when the new medical school's inaugural class of 43 students will be presented their medical coats, a sign that their journey toward becoming physicians has begun. ``The White Coat Ceremony is their rite of passage, their formal introduction to the art of healing. Once they put their coats on, they will be changed forever, '' said John Rock, the founding dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.

The public ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. at the school's performing arts center at FIU's Modesto A. Maidique Campus, 11200 SW Eighth St.

Each student will receive a traditional white medical coat. The student coats will be short in order to distinguish them from doctors when doing their clinical rotations at hospitals.

They will also be given a stethoscope, donated by Leon Medical Centers. In 2008, Benjamin León Jr., founder of Leon Medical Centers, donated $10 million to the medical school.

The first full-fledged White Coat Ceremony was held in 1993 at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. More than 100 medical schools in the United States now hold the ceremonies at the start of the year.


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