On Friday, Aug. 22, I had the pleasure of participating in my 15th UNMC White Coat Ceremony, officially welcoming the members of the medical school class of 2029 to the profession of being a physician. This year also was marked by an optional orientation program that is described in this issue of InterCOM and was created to help better prepare our incoming students for the rigor of our medical school curriculum.
Only a little over two weeks after the White Coat Ceremony at the Orpheum Theater, I participated with interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Jane Meza, PhD, in the newly created COM new faculty orientation program.
Both programs were very well organized and marked important transitions in the participant’s careers. Let me first acknowledge the efforts of and thank Wendy Grant, MD, and Geoff Talmon, MD, as well as their staffs, Cody Phillips, Lindsay Meyer, Rachel Samson and Crystal Bayfield, for putting together an outstanding program.
The White Coat Ceremony was preceded that day by an orientation program for families of new students, Parents and Family Day, that is put together by the UNMC Alumni Association under the leadership of Catherine Mello. We sometimes forget how important the support of families is to the success of our students.
This is the first year that we have had a formal orientation for new faculty. This used to be taken care of at the department level. But the COM Office of Faculty Affairs, led by Associate Dean Nada Fadul, MD, and Assistant Dean Suzanne Haney, MD, recognized — based on feedback from recently hired faculty — that, given the marked growth in the size and complexity of the college over the last decade, a more formal orientation to UNMC and, for clinical faculty with its health system partners, was overdue. My thanks to Drs. Haney and Fadul for putting this program together in parallel with Nebraska Medicine and Children’s Specialty Physicians.
Although the official start of the academic year is July 1, it never seems to be fully underway until after Labor Day. This coming year we have many opportunities and challenges before us, particularly financial. These were well characterized by our University President and former UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, MD, in his state of the university address Sept. 4. If you missed it, I urge you to review his thoughts.
As we look to the coming year, Dr. Gold said, “We must acknowledge the hard truths of our challenges — financial and otherwise — while maintaining an unwavering belief in our ability to emerge stronger. Together, we will keep faith in the extraordinary future we can achieve. Together, we will continue our Odyssey to the Extraordinary.”
I look forward to being part of that odyssey with you. Thanks for all you contribute to the UNMC College of Medicine.