Media Advisory: White coat ceremony for UB’s largest-ever medical school class marks “institutional milestone”

BUFFALO, N.Y. — They volunteer at food pantries and suicide hotlines, work with the homeless and refugees, and assist at hospice and Meals on Wheels. They’ve done research on cancer, diabetes and geriatrics, and worked on medical missions all over the globe.

They are the 180 students of the Class of 2021 at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo. Today, Aug. 11, at 3 p.m., they will receive their white coats at a ceremony in the Mainstage theater in the Center for the Arts on the UB North Campus.

Best time for photos: Students will begin to be “coated” at approximately 3:30 p.m. For press arrangements, contact Ellen Goldbaum in the UB Office of University Communications at 716-645-4605 or 716-771-9255 and on-site.

“For each student who will be coated, the ceremony is a personal milestone,” said Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

“But this year’s white coat ceremony is also an institutional milestone,” Cain added. “Today, we officially welcome to UB its largest-ever medical school class, 180 students, up from 144.”

That expansion, which he called a necessity to help fill the physician shortage in the region and in the nation, was only made possible by the construction of the new downtown home of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Students will begin classes in the new building in January after spending their first semester on the South Campus.

Of the 180 students, 152 are from New York State, 78 are from Western New York and 40 earned their undergraduate degrees from UB.

At the ceremony, all 180 medical students will take the Oath of Medicine. During the "calling of the class," students will be called to the stage individually to be presented with their coat while their undergraduate institution and hometown is identified by Charles M. Severin, MD, PhD, UB associate dean for medical education and admissions.

The keynote address will be given by Robert H. Ablove, MD, clinical associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedics. The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine award will be presented to Lynn Steinbrenner, MD, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and chief of the Oncology Section at the Veterans Administration WNY Healthcare System.

The white coat ceremony is a symbolic rite of passage shared by medical students across the U.S. to establish a psychological contract for professionalism and empathy in the practice of medicine.