Dental School’s White Coat Ceremony
Welcomes 101 New Dental Students
Dental professionals representing the IU School of
Dentistry and four of the dental profession’s key institutions helped Dean
Lawrence Goldblatt welcome 101 members of the school’s DDS Class of 2013 during
a White Coat ceremony held at the University Place Conference Center on the
Indianapolis campus on August 1.
The IU School of Dentistry established its White Coat
program in 2001 as a means of underscoring the professionalism of dentistry for
its incoming students at the outset of their dental studies. The ceremony was
held just 26 days after the class’s first semester in the four-year program got
under way.
The coats, with the words “Indiana University School of
Dentistry” embroidered in red thread above the breast pocket, are presented each
year to the new dental students in front of their families and friends as a
symbol of the healthcare professions and to draw attention to the importance of
ethics and high standards of professionalism that are expected of healthcare
providers.
Keynote speaker David Wolf (DDS’87), Indianapolis,
addressed the students as a representative of the American College of Dentists.
Helping Wolf present the white coats were Martin Szakaly (DDS’78), South Bend,
president-elect of the Indiana Dental Association; James Foulkes (DDS’80),
Terre Haute, representing the Academy of General Dentistry; IU Professor Steven
Dixon (DDS’73), representing the School of Dentistry; and IU Professor Bruce
Matis (MSD’83), representing Theta Theta Chapter of Omicron Kappa Upsilon
dental honor society.
The new class, which was drawn from an international applicant
pool of 1,785 persons, is composed of 73 Indiana residents and 28 nonresidents.
The nonresident students are from the states of California, Colorado, Florida,
Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina,
Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, as well as the Canadian provinces of
Alberta and Ontario.
The average age is 23.7 years for this class of 62 men
and 39 women. A total of 64 of the new students completed their undergraduate
work at Indiana colleges and universities, with the greatest number of them –
24 – coming to IUSD after studying on the IU Bloomington campus. Nearly all of
the students have acquired a bachelor’s degree, and 13 hold a master’s degree.
Academic averages for the Class of 2013 are 3.58 grade
point average for overall studies and 3.52 grade point average in science, both
on a scale of 4.0.
The majority of the class pursued biology as an
undergraduate major (55 members), although a wide range of undergraduate programs,
including accounting, art, exercise science, mechanical engineering, and
pre-veterinary science in addition to the more traditional predental fields of
study, reflects a multifaceted group of students that is sure to bring its own
unique stamp of excellence to the IU School of Dentistry student body.
Aug. 20, 2009