Class of 2019 students showed their new white coats
One hundred and forty first-year students at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai received their white coats and stethoscopes in a symbolic celebration on Thursday, September 17, that marked the beginning of their medical education. Families and friends cheered on the Class of 2019, as the students walked to the stage to be coated by faculty during the jubilant 18th annual White Coat Ceremony held in Stern Auditorium.
“Your class has credentials that place you among the best and brightest medical students in the nation,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System. “Over the course of your career, you will make fundamental discoveries in the laboratory and in the clinic resulting in more precise, personalized care, leading to the cures that we desperately need.”
Emily N. Tixier was one of 140 first-year medical students who received white coats and stethoscopes at the 18th annual White Coat Ceremony.
Dr. Charney noted how far the field of medicine has advanced since he was a medical student in the 1970s, when there was no magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) scans, antiviral drugs, vaccines for Hepatitis A,B,C, and HPV, statins for high cholesterol, DNA sequencing, and other technologies.
Despite this, he told the students, “There are too few curative treatments for human illness.” He said, “MRIs enable us to diagnose strokes, but we cannot bring back lost brain tissue. PET scans can help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, yet there are no good treatments for this terrible illness. Class of 2019, there is much work to be done. It is to your generation that we now turn to guide us toward an age of insight and discovery.”
Keynote speaker Rachel Levine, MD
Roberto Posada, MD, Faculty Advisor and Associate Professor, Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, and Medical Education administered an oath written by the students that expressed their most important ideals. The class pledged “To treat each patient with unconditional dignity and compassion as a human being, respecting their autonomy, beliefs, and culture; and to remain life-long students and challenge ourselves to grow personally and professionally.”
Peter W. May, Chairman, Mount Sinai Health System Boards of Trustees, highlighted the many resources and opportunities available to students at the Icahn School of Medicine. “You can help us to understand the dynamics of disease through big data analysis of our Biobank that has detailed genetic information on thousands of patients.”
Keynote speaker Rachel Levine, MD, Physician General, Pennsylvania Department of Health, and an Icahn School of Medicine alumnus, said, “The decision to become a physician is a very significant one. You will receive an outstanding medical education at Mount Sinai. Have big goals for your career. Keep your idealism. It will be shaped by realism as well, but don’t lose it. Life may take many different turns and send you on many unexpected paths, but I am confident that your training here will prepare you for all roads, those expected and those unexpected.”