JOHNSON CITY (July 29, 2022) – East Tennessee State University’s Quillen College of Medicine welcomed 78 medical students in the Class of 2026 at a traditional White Coat Ceremony held at ETSU’s Martin Center for the Arts on July 29.
“This is a meaningful ceremony for our students and their families, and also for our faculty and staff as we have been awaiting and preparing for this new class for many months,” said Dr. Bill Block, ETSU vice president for clinical affairs and dean of Quillen College of Medicine. “For the past two years, we have been working to transform our pre-clerkship curriculum. The Class of 2026 will be the first class to experience these changes designed to further enhance the experience and outcomes for our students through an integrated organ system approach. We are confident that this will continue our great tradition of training future physicians for the region.”
The Class of 2026 was selected from more than 3,800 applicants, a record number for the college. The class represents 44 undergraduate institutions, and all but 10 new students are Tennesseans. Four incoming students are children of Quillen alumni and six are military-affiliated.
Among the students who received their white coats was Tia K. Shutes of Nashville.
“I chose Quillen because of its newly modeled curriculum and the strong sense of camaraderie I felt on my interview day,” Shutes said.
Christian Blazer from Parrottsville also received his white coat. He was drawn to Quillen “because of the focus on rural medicine and primary care.”
The White Coat ceremony was established in 1993 by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation and was the brainchild of Gold, who believed that medical students should be introduced to the white coat and what it represents as they enter medical school, rather than when they exit, which had been the case historically.
Quillen College of Medicine held its first White Coat Ceremony in 1997, making this the 25th anniversary. That year, the entering class of students was presented with white coats during a luncheon on the first day of orientation. Since that time, the ceremony has become the climax of Quillen’s new student orientation program.
This year, the keynote speakers at the White Coat Ceremony were Dr. Sheri Holmes, associate dean for clinical affairs and chief medical officer of ETSU Health, and Dr. Dawn Tuell, professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Quillen College of Medicine. Both speakers were members of the first class to hold a white coat ceremony at Quillen.
Quillen alumni have embraced the tradition, helping to make the ceremony especially meaningful for new students. Each year, alumni have the opportunity to donate a gift of $100 or more, which supports a white coat for a student and helps fund the reception after the ceremony, as well as other student activities throughout the year.
In addition to the monetary gifts, the alumni support also comes in the form of notes that the donors write to the incoming medical students. The notes are sealed in envelopes and placed in the pockets of the white coats. Upon receiving their white coats, the new students open their envelopes and read the encouraging messages.
This opening of envelopes foreshadows a much-anticipated event that occurs when the students finish their medical school education – the opening of envelopes to find out where they will complete their residency.
To learn more about Quillen College of Medicine, visit etsu.edu/com.