Med: Orientation & White Coat Ceremony

Hey everyone,

Unlike Clegal and his wisdom teeth, I lack a legit reason for not posting lately. My bad. Orientation HAS been really busy, but come on…it doesn’t take much effort to write some words. So this is me rectifying the situation.

Orientation was pretty much what I expected it to be beforehand: lots of speeches, lots of “how to be a med student,” and lots of meeting people in hopes that names will not be forgotten. You know…like every other orientation ever. I must say, though, that I really enjoy the student body here at our school. For the most part, people seem extra chill and very down to Earth (as opposed to say, the student population at duke save for the friend group with whom I surrounded myself). Granted, I’m coming to this conclusion during the relaxed part of the year, and we WERE told that “med school can bring out the worst in people,” but this first week was spectacular. From that first night on Taylor Street to the open bar at the Cubby Bear and many fun interactions in between, I really feel that I’m going to like my fellow students.

We also had a WONDERFUL keynote speaker during orientation–a man named Dr. Art Jones–who spoke about using the medical profession to enact positive changes within a community. Specifically, he talked about the establishment of the Lawndale Christian Health Center in Chicago’s Lawndale community, an historically impoverished neighborhood on the west side. Over the past 27 years, he has worked within the community–living there himself with his white family in a 50% African-American/50% Hispanic community–to build up many positive health-related programs for this underserved area. As many of my friends know, this is one type of work that I am particularly interested in; however, I never in my wildest dreams saw myself accomplishing what he has done. I simply cannot do justice with my words to just how powerful I found his story to be. If you’re interested, you can check out his center @ http://www.lawndale.org/index.html.

Finally on Saturday, I received my first “White Coat” to wear during hospital activities throughout my medical school career. It was a very nice ceremony–more speeches, the students recited an oath, and helped one another put on our coats to symbolize team/community building–and was more than anything the official “Welcome to the medical profession.” I now have almost all the necessary tools:

-Scrubs

-White Coat

-Stethoscope

-Reflex Hammer

Now I suppose I should actually LEARN some medicine. With that in mind, I need to end this entry…I’ve got class tomorrow. 🙂