A New Welcome for a New Medical School Class

This year’s White Coat Ceremony was preceded the day before by the first-ever Family Day, a new welcoming event for first-year U-M medical students and their families. On Saturday, August 17, participants gathered at the Towsley Center for Continuing Medical Education to attend a “mini-medical school,” including lectures such as “Teaching Anatomy” by Thomas R. Gest, Ph.D., intended to give them an idea of what U-M medical students experience during their course of study. Between the morning and afternoon lecture sessions, parents, siblings, and even some extended family members who were in attendance explored plastinated specimens, computer exhibits and demonstrations displayed in the Towsley Lobby as part of the day’s activities.

The following day, the Power Center for the Performing Arts was the venue for the White Coat Ceremony. The 173 students that comprise the class of 2006 were welcomed to the school by Dean Allen Lichter (M.D. 1972), then-Medical Center Alumni Society President Mac Whitehouse (M.D. 1973, Residency 1978), Associate Dean for Student Programs Rachel Glick (M.D. 1984), and Professor of Pathology Gerald Abrams (M.D. 1955). As family members watched with pride, Dean Lichter presented each student with the first white coat of their medical careers.

The White Coat Ceremony provided the Medical School’s Class of 2006 with a formal start to their medical training. The annual event is sponsored by the Medical Center Alumni Society. Photo: Gregory Fox

—MF