INDIANAPOLIS – One of the largest classes in the history of the Indiana University School of Medicine will participate in a time-honored ceremony Friday when the future doctors don the traditional white medical coats and repeat in unison the Physician’s Oath as family and friends observe.
During the White Coat Ceremony, IU School of Medicine faculty assist first-year students into the white coats that symbolize clinical service. This year’s ceremony will begin at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 5 at the Hilbert Circle Theatre, 45 Monument Circle.
Jay L. Hess, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the IU School of Medicine, vice president for university clinical affairs and Walter J. Daly Professor, will welcome the incoming students and their families and deliver the keynote address.
Friday’s event concludes a week of orientation that included a medical service-learning project held Wednesday at the Salvation Army Corps Community Center in Fountain Square. More than 230 members of the class of 2020 participated in team building activities that resulted in a bicycle building service project to assemble bikes that will be donated through initiatives by the Salvation Army and its partners.
Orientation week activities provide a variety of opportunities for new students to meet their new colleagues and learn about the institution as they enroll in the largest medical school in the nation. IU medical students are assigned to one of nine regional campuses where they receive their four years of training: Bloomington, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Gary, Indianapolis, Muncie, South Bend, Terre Haute and West Lafayette.
This year’s class of 364 students includes 162 women and 202 men, with 98 out-of-state students.
More than a quarter of the students are African American or from other minority backgrounds that are underrepresented among medical schools and physicians. The IU School of Medicine was recently recognized by US News and World Report for having one of the largest number of African American students of any school of medicine in the U.S.