Medical Training Journey Begins For IU Students
INDIANAPOLIS - Marilyn Gearhart and her daughter Shannon always have been close and shared many experiences. For the next four years, they will become even closer as they train to become physicians at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
The Auburn, Ind., mother and daughter will be among 280 students participating in the Aug. 19 White Coat Ceremony, a unique rite of passage marking the beginning of an IU medical student's education. With their families, school faculty and other guests looking on, the first-year students will receive their laboratory coats and recite the Hippocratic oath.
"The White Coat Ceremony impresses upon students the altruistic nature of the doctor-and-patient relationship," says IU School of Medicine Dean D. Craig Brater, M.D. "It encourages students to accept the obligations inherent in the practice of medicine, to excel in science, to be compassionate and to maintain the honor and the dignity of the profession."
The Gearharts are the first mother-and-daughter team to be admitted together at the IU School of Medicine, a situation both view as a benefit. "We each have our own particular strengths and weaknesses, and we can support each other as needed," notes Shannon, a recent biology honors graduate at Loyola University in Chicago. "Certainly, this is an unusual situation but my mother always has been there for me. Now I'll be there for her, too."
"But it's highly debatable we'll sit together in class," jokingly adds Marilyn, a former teacher and mathematics chair at DeKalb High School near Auburn.
In 1993, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation established the White Coat Ceremony, a growing program among medical schools around the country.
The IU School of Medicine, the second largest medical school in the United States with more than 1,200 students, has nine medical education centers throughout the state for first- and second-year students. IU medical education centers are located in Gary (IU-Northwest), Bloomington (IU campus), Evansville (University of Southern Indiana), Terre Haute (Indiana State University), South Bend (University of Notre Dame), West Lafayette (Purdue University), Fort Wayne (Indiana University-Purdue University campus), Muncie (Ball Memorial Hospital), and Indianapolis (IUPUI)
In their first year, IUSM students study gross anatomy, histology, neurobiology, biochemistry, physiology, immunology, microbiology and introduction to medicine. The second year includes courses in biostatistics, pharmacology, medical genetics, pathology and emergency medicine.
All IU School of Medicine students complete their final two years of study at the IUPUI campus. Students receive clinical training in that time, in addition to further classroom and laboratory studies.
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For more information about the Indiana University School of Medicine, visit its Web site at www.medicine.indiana.edu.
Media Contact: Joe Stuteville
Tel: (317)274-7722
Email: jstutevi@iupui.edu
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