Press Release

For Immediate Release
Contact: Kaylyn Kendall Dines
(973) 972-7276
www.umdnj.edu

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

At UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
First-Year Medical Students Will Receive White Coats At Ceremony And Begin Educational Journey Towards Becoming Physicians

The 10th annual White Coat Ceremony to welcome first-year medical students at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School will be held on Friday, August 8, at 2 p.m., in the atrium of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital at One Robert Wood Johnson Place, New Brunswick.

Dr. Kenneth I. Shine, a founding director of the RAND Center for Domestic and International Health Security in Arlington, Va. is the keynote speaker for the ceremony. He currently leads the center's efforts to make health a central component of U.S. foreign policy.

Dr. Shine, a professor of medicine emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. A former president of the Institute of Medicine, while there Dr. Shine organized several symposia about the importance of cultural sensitivity in health care. He also has extensive experience working with international health experts on global issues such as infectious illnesses, bioethics and access to care.

The White Coat Ceremony was initiated to emphasize the importance of caring and sensitivity in medicine to first-year medical students. Each student will be presented with a white coat and a pin inscribed with the words Humanism in Medicine. The students also will be presented with a book from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation entitled On Doctoring. Drs. John Stone and

Richard Reynolds edited the book, which contains short stories, poems and essays related to the medical profession.

The event is sponsored by the Daniel and Bernard Kessler Foundation, a private philanthropy founded in 1969 to honor two brothers, both civic leaders, who grew up in New Brunswick.

Dr. Harold L. Paz, dean of the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, will preside over the ceremony. Other speakers include: Dr. Stuart D. Cook, president of UMDNJ; Dr. David Seiden, associate dean for admissions and student affairs at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; Eric Smith, president of the Daniel and Bernard Kessler Foundation;

Sheldon Rossman, co-chair of the Association of Family and Friends; and Seth Heckman, a second-year medical student at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

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