Class of 2011 –
UT Medical Students’ Ceremony
Marks First Step to Becoming Physicians
HOUSTON–(Aug. 6, 2007)–Meeting the nation’s urgent need to train more physicians, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston is enrolling its largest entering class of students this month. To welcome the Class of 2011, the school will host its White Coat Ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Edwin Hornberger Conference Center, 2151 W. Holcombe Blvd.
UT Medical School student Devry Saenz-Maldonado
donning her white coat for the first time at the 2006
ceremony.
Physicians from the UT Medical School at Houston will help each of the 230 new medical students into white coats. The donning of the short white coat signals the first milestone in the students’ quest to become physicians dedicated to excellence in patient care.
The students, who begin classes Aug. 20, also will sign an ethical pledge and take the traditional “Oath of Hippocrates.”
“Medicine has traditions that go back centuries. The White Coat Ceremony is a recent construct, but a rather important one,” said Jerry S. Wolinsky, M.D., interim dean of the UT Medical School at Houston. “It serves as a strong symbol of passage from a phase of education for the growth of self to one dedicated to the service of others.”
Judianne Kellaway, M.D., the 2007 recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, will be the keynote speaker. “This life of medicine is now a deep and meaningful and integral part of you,” Kellaway advises the Class of 2011. “The responsibilities are great. The burden is great. But you will bear it with enthusiasm and great care, as there is no higher calling than taking care of your fellow man... Enjoy the wonder and excitement of this world of medicine. You’re going to love it.”
Please join us as we welcome the UT Medical School at Houston’s Class of 2011. English- and Spanish-speaking students and faculty will be available for interviews before and after the ceremony. Here are a few of the students you will meet and stories you will hear at the White Coat Ceremony:
UT Medical School student Devry Saenz-Maldonado
signing her Oath of Hippocrates at the 2006 White
Coat Ceremony.
While working with a doctor who was caring for underserved populations in Yucatan, Mexico, Edgar Araiza found his medical calling. “The towns we worked in were so indigenous, the populations often didn’t speak Spanish and still spoke Mayan language,” said Araiza, who was born in Saltillo in the state of Coahuila, Mexico. “In these underprivileged areas, with no health care, many of these people didn't go to doctors. I found the love for the patient.” Araiza, 23, a graduate of Austin College in Sherman, TX, is the first in his family to graduate from college and purse a career in medicine.
Peter Kaldis, 23, has the medical profession in his blood. He is the grandson of famed heart surgeon Denton A. Cooley, M.D., founder of the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Hospital and namesake of the Denton A. Cooley Building, and the nephew of Susan Cooley King, Ph.D., project director of Reach Out and Read-Texas and a former assistant professor of pediatrics at the UT Medical School at Houston. Kaldis, a graduate of Santa Monica High School, considers Los Angeles his hometown, where his mother (also a UT Houston graduate) is an ophthalmologist and his father works in real estate. Kaldis has spent the past summer working in the Santa Monica free clinic helping to provide care to underserved populations.
A newborn named Helena served as the muse who helped inspire Michael Arriaga to go to medical school. Arriaga, 22, was participating in the Physician Shadowing Program at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center when he witnessed the baby girl’s birth. “Seeing these people so happy and anticipant of the future made me yearn for a career in medicine in which I could hand people a bundle of joy, both literally and figuratively, every single day of my career,” said Arriaga, who grew up in El Paso and graduated from The University of Texas at El Paso. Arriaga has a personal interest in diabetes and border health issues. “I’m ready to learn as much as I can,” he said. “All my life I’ve wanted this, and now it’s time to get to work.”
From the time she was 5 years old, Lori Brown has been a caregiver. Her role as a care provider began when her father had his first heart attack. Since then, Brown’s experiences with her father’s medical problems and his health care have helped shaped her decision to become a physician. “One of his cardiologists waived all the fees for expensive testing,” said Brown, 22, of Meridian. “I want to be able to do that for people. I want to be there to help during their health and financial crises.” Brown, a graduate of Tarleton State University, is considering specializing in cardiothoracic surgery. She is married to Robert Brown, a second-year student at the UT Medical School at Houston.
Through her volunteerism, work and education, Sarah Deverman, 24, of Spring, already has a taste of what it will be like when she becomes a physician. She recently participated in summer programs at the UT Medical School at Houston. While obtaining her undergraduate degree at Loyola University, she served as a child life volunteer at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Afterward, Deverman worked for two years as a research assistant for a biopharmaceutical company in The Woodlands. During that time, she also volunteered at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands. “I remember when I was small, my mom suffered from osteoporosis, and I always wanted to make her feel better,” Deverman said. “I think that’s when I decided I wanted to become a doctor. I want to help people.”
The activities at a convenience store in the Fifth Ward, along with a summer school teacher, sparked Kha Dinh’s interest in research and medicine. Dinh, 23, of Northwest Houston, spent much of his childhood in the store his parents operated. Just outside the storefront window, he witnessed the effects on the community of poverty, violence and a lack of health care. If not for a third-grade teacher who revolutionized the way Dinh thought about education, he may have never considered becoming a physician dedicated to helping underserved populations. “That’s who I want to reach – people who can’t easily access the health care system,” Dinh said. “I am looking forward to acquiring the knowledge and the skills it takes to make a difference.”
Lance Harris, 22, plans to become a physician so he can give back to his community. Harris grew up in a southeast Houston neighborhood where health care wasn’t easy to come by. “Growing up in my neighborhood, it became a passion and a dream of mine to become a doctor so I could go back and take care of the people in my community,” said Harris, who graduated from the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions before completing his studies at Texas Southern University. Harris hopes to one day open a nonprofit medical clinic in southeast Houston for those who would not otherwise be able to afford it.
For Jeff Kemp, 45, becoming a physician was not his childhood dream. “I never dared to dream so large,” he said. Kemp dropped out of high school when he was 17 and immediately went to work, first as an artificial turf installer and then as a hardwood floor installer. He eventually started his own successful flooring business. Kemp was in his late 30s before he ever entertained the idea of a career in medicine. With the encouragement of his wife, a psychiatrist, he enrolled at a community college and later graduated from The University of Texas at Dallas. He volunteered at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, logging 500 hours in the emergency room. “That’s when the passion for medicine really started,” said Kemp, of Flower Mound. “I’ve seen people who have trouble accessing health care and have to wait until it’s so severe that they come to the ER doubled over in pain,” Kemp said. “I want to help them.”