Rutgers New Jersey Medical School welcomed 174 future physicians who put on their white coats for the first time at the annual Barbara and Norman Seiden White Coat Ceremony – signifying their commitment to the medical profession.

“Congratulations to our exceptional first-year medical students on your White Coat Ceremony. Now that you have officially donned your white coats, remember that you are not only receiving a symbol of your commitment to medicine, but also embracing a lifelong journey of learning, compassion and healing,” said Robert L. Johnson, the Sharon and Joseph L. Muscarelle Endowed Dean of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) and a 1972 NJMS graduate, at the August 10 ceremony. “Your passion and dedication will make a profound impact.”

Receiving the white coat represents a rite of passage for medical students, signaling their unwavering commitment to the medical field and patient care. It stands as a milestone for the Class of 2027 on its journey to becoming knowledge seekers, medical practitioners, researchers and devoted stewards of the community.

Kwame Amonu, first-year medical student, said, “Having received life-saving care during my emergency birth, I’ve always felt destined to choose medicine. This, along with my fascination with the sciences and my desire to be a positive light to others, is what guided me to this career path. This White Coat Ceremony is a culmination of all the hard work I’ve done to get to this point and a testament to all the support I’ve received along the way.” 

The White Coat Ceremony not only marks a pivotal moment for these aspiring physicians, but it also amplifies the solid foundation laid by the university’s faculty and staff. “The White Coat Ceremony is a profound way to start medical school and the lifelong professional journey of dedication to excellence of patient care. It recognizes our entering class who will have the opportunity to serve our patients and our community. NJMS selects students who have the passion and commitment to make a difference in the world. As a graduate myself, it is a very special privilege to work with our students and alumni,” said George F. Heinrich, associate dean for admissions.

Reciting the Hippocratic Oath, which was led by Joseph Apuzzio, professor and a 1973 NJMS graduate, these future medical practitioners pledged to uphold the duties and principles of their medical profession - solemnly and ethically.

“Reciting the Hippocratic Oath has given me a newfound sense of duty to my future patients. I resonate with its principle of altruism and aim to practice medicine with intention and humility. In prioritizing the needs of my patients, I can better understand how to best serve them. I vow to uphold these ideals throughout my career as a physician,” said Alexis Fisher, first-year medical student.

Beaming with immense pride and joy, attendees enthusiastically cheered on the future leaders of medicine.

“It feels completely surreal to have received my white coat. I have long awaited this moment, and I truly cannot believe that it has finally arrived. I remember, as a child, proudly proclaiming to my parents, that I would become a doctor.  I’m happy to have the privilege of sharing this special moment with them, along with my friends and peers. This is a day that I will forever remember and cherish,” said Fisher.

As the Class of 2027 starts their educational journey at NJMS, they carry with them the support of family, friends, peers, mentors and the NJMS community. Their shared commitment to excellence and compassion for patient care will not only shape the future of medicine, but also leave an indelible imprint on the medical profession. 

“I want you to wear your white coat with pride and embark on this transformative path with courage and enthusiasm,” said Johnson, as he sent well wishes to the Class of 2027.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In the late 19th century, Brown University’s focus on community health led to the establishment of one of the nation’s first municipal public health laboratories in Providence. 

In Fall 2013, building on more than a century of public health leadership, the Corporation of Brown University, the University's governing body, voted to merge Brown’s impactful public health programs into a unified School of Public Health. Ten years later, the University will launch a 12-month celebration of the school’s history, impact and future plans, said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the School of Public Health, in an August 15 letter to the Brown University community announcing the celebration.

“Generations later, our school continues to translate this commitment to improving the health of all people into research and programs fit for the 21st century,” Jha wrote. “From revolutionizing how substance use is understood and treated, to guiding people and policymakers through the COVID-19 pandemic, to improving access to public health leadership by establishing the Health Equity Scholars program, our School of Public Health is building towards addressing the pressing public health challenges of our time.”

The celebration of 10 Years of Brown’s School of Public Health will commence with a campus-wide event on the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 27, at which Jha will join Brown President Christina H. Paxson, under whose leadership the school was created, to explore the past, present and future vision for public health at Brown.

The kick-off celebration will commence a year of public health-themed conversations, seminars, lectures, community gatherings and action-oriented offerings.

These include the Dean’s Conversation Series, where Jha will invite distinguished speakers from around the world to join him for discussions about pressing public health challenges, and Our Storied Health, an integrated media experience from Brown Arts Ignite and the Pandemic Center that will involve film screenings and workshops showcasing the power of storytelling as a public health intervention. Additional events will be listed on the school’s newly-refreshed website. 

Throughout the 12-month celebration, the School of Public Health will also share stories of impact through articles, interviews and profiles of students and researchers online and on social media.

“At 10, we are a nimble, entrepreneurial, collaborative and intellectually rigorous school,” Jha wrote. “We create community among nationally and internationally recognized researchers, a growing number of top global health practitioners and leaders, and our superb, diverse students. We know the best way to become an effective public health leader is through training that is deeply rooted in practice.”

Jha said this is a fitting time for Brown’s School of Public Health to learn from the past.

“At the tail end of a historic pandemic, with a host of pressing challenges ahead of us, it is an important time to build on our history, renew our commitment and create a bold path forward together,” Jha wrote. 

The co-founders of Microdoc, an AI-based dictation tool for doctors, are two of the youngest entrepreneurs to feature in this column since its inception more than a decade ago.

Brian Kelleher and Richard Blazek are 19-year-old students at Trinity College and the idea for Microdoc came from Kelleher who first became aware of the mountains of paperwork medical practices have to manage during a summer job with a spinal care consultancy in Dublin.

“Paperwork is a necessary evil and essential to high-quality patient care, but it requires an enormous amount of effort, diligence, and time. Creating, sending and processing documents are key parts of any paperwork flow and these are the parts we’re trying to help with,” says Kelleher who is studying maths and economics and currently participating in Launchbox, Trinity’s start-up accelerator for student entrepreneurs. His co-founder, Richard Blazek, is studying computer science.

“From working in the medical practice I could see how much was still being done manually and the amount of scope for automation. Much of what was needed was relatively simple to do but I knew it would make a big difference to the more efficient use of time and resources,” says Kelleher.

“When we started Microdoc in 2022 we launched with a tool that analysed incoming medical documents. However, we quickly realised that this problem wasn’t valuable enough from a business perspective so we pivoted to focus more on our dictation tool,” says Kelleher, who has been coding since the age of 12.

“From talking to doctors we discovered that many were spending thousands on transcription services and that this was where the real opportunity lay. By introducing AI and robotic automation we knew we could make the whole paperwork process more efficient and cheaper.

“Microdoc is faster, costs less and is higher quality than the alternatives on the market. It is also quicker than human typists and more accurate and has more features than existing dictation products.”

There are four elements to the company’s digital assistant: a smart dictation function that generates letters from dictation in seconds, a review tool that makes it easier for doctors to review incoming documents, an insight engine that delivers medical insights based on the patient’s medical history and easy integration with existing patient management systems.

Kelleher says the dictation tool has various checks and balances to pick up typos and other errors in referral letters while a series of automation tools speeds up the review process by highlighting anomalies or medical terminology that may need to be corrected. There is an autofill function for signatures, different letter templates to choose from and the letter is easily uploaded to a practice’s existing patient records system. “The idea is to make the life cycle of a referral letter as seamless as possible from creation to distribution,” says Kelleher, who points out that big practices often send out hundreds of referral letters a month.

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Microdoc has been revenue generating since the launch of its dictation tool in May. The founders used the €15,000 in prize money from their win in the Enterprise Ireland student entrepreneurship awards to kick-start the business and were able to keep costs to a minimum as they self-developed the product. The current focus is on selling to individual medical practitioners from all disciplines, but the product is also scalable for large scale settings such as hospitals.

Microdoc is a SaaS product and ultimately Kelleher says the revenue model will be a tiered subscription. For now, there is a flat fee of €20 to sign up and a charge of €1 per referral letter dictated. The founders are currently focused on cracking the Irish market but the UK and the US are also firmly in their sights.

A University of Queensland study has found a student-led dental clinic in rural Queensland improved the oral health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by providing access to culturally appropriate and timely care.

The clinic at Dalby in south-west Queensland, opened in 2013 as a partnership between UQ's School of Dentistry and Aboriginal community-controlled health service, Goondir Health Services.

Dr Sandra March from UQ's School of Dentistry said each year the clinic treated approximately 800 Indigenous patients from Dalby and the Greater Western Downs region.

Oral health care is provided free of charge by fifth-year students from UQ's Bachelor of Dental Science (Honours) program under the supervision of registered, experienced dental practitioners.

This model offers benefits for both the students and the surrounding communities.

By the end of 2023, more than 180 students will have completed a rural Indigenous clinical outplacement at the Dalby clinic.

We found this powerful learning environment developed students' skills and knowledge in culturally appropriate dental care."

Dr Sandra March from UQ's School of Dentistry

Associate Professor Ratilal Lalloo from UQ's School of Dentistry said culturally appropriate and timely dental care is often not available to Indigenous people, especially in rural and remote areas.

"Indigenous people suffer from more caries, periodontal disease and tooth loss than non-Indigenous people," Dr Lalloo said.

"We worked with Indigenous people from Goondir Health Services and local community groups to understand the barriers to oral health care."

The student dental clinic was embedded within the Goondir Health Services premises in Dalby.

"Referrals for dental care are integral to Goondir's holistic healthcare model," Dr Lalloo said.

"The community reported increased knowledge of oral health, improved general health outcomes and better access to a culturally safe and appropriate model of care.

"We also found waiting times for the government-funded dental clinic were shorter, indicating our student clinic eased the burden on the public system."

Goondir Health Services CEO Floyd Leedie said the unique partnership could be replicated across a range of allied health fields in regional and rural Australia.

"The two-way relationship between general and oral health and accessibility to both primary health care services and oral health services in one location reduces the chance of negative impacts to our clients' overall health," Mr Leedie said.

The team has published studies in Australian Dental Journal and The Australian Journal of Rural Health.