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In the moments before they were cloaked with their new white coats and welcomed into the medical profession, Dr. Keith Kenter posed two questions to the 84 students in WMed’s MD Class of 2021.

“Are you really crazy?” asked Dr. Kenter, professor and chair of the medical school’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. “Are you crazy for doing this?”

They were questions to which Dr. Kenter wasn’t actually seeking a response. Instead, he gave the students their answer.

“How could anyone say that you’re crazy when you look at medicine?” he said. “The horizons in medicine are endless, they’re vast and it’s going to help you grow. You’re going to have a positive impact for your patients, you’re going to have a positive impact for your community and you’re going to make it a better place for your community to live.

“I wouldn’t do anything else, I wouldn’t change any road or decision that I made and I would do it all again.”

Dr. Kenter’s keynote address, which he delivered on Saturday, September 9, 2017, during the White Coat Ceremony for the Class of 2021, served to buoy WMed’s fourth class of aspiring physicians as they prepared to embrace the successes – and take on the challenges – of medical school.

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During the ceremony, each of the 84 students was presented with their white coat as their family and friends cheered and applauded inside Kalamazoo’s Chenery Auditorium.

Kylie Miller, a second-year student and president of the medical school’s Class of 2020, told the new students that she was overwhelmed by the crazy, amazing and exciting things she learned, saw and did in her first year of medical school. She told them to think of medical school as “trying to scale a 100-foot wall without any hand holds or ropes, or water.”

To get through it all, Miller said, the students will have to rely on one another.

“The only way you can make it to the top is to do it with the help of the people sitting next to you now,” Miller said. “By standing on one another’s shoulders and trusting that the person beneath you won’t let you fall and that the person above you will always turn around and offer you a hand up.”

Miller told her new counterparts that they’ll also have the support of their professors and family and friends as they make their way through medical school. With all of the challenges that await them, Miller told the students to never be afraid to ask for help.

“My best advice to you is to grab on to every second you get to experience these next four years,” Miller said. “Be fully present in the moment. Live it, breathe it, love it, because everything that you’re a part of is something you can learn from. It is something that will make you a better doctor, a better person, or both.
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“WMed is truly a special place,” she added. “We are a community, a culture, a family, so on behalf of the student��body, welcome home. We are so excited to see the amazing physicians we know you will become over the next four years.”

A doctor’s white coat has long been the widely recognized symbol of the medical profession. However, it wasn’t until 1993 that the White Coat Ceremony was founded by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, which concluded that the beginning of a student’s journey into medicine is the best time to influence the standards of professionalism, humanistic values and behavior.

The white coat for each student at the White Coat Ceremony on September 9 was made possible by contributions from white coat sponsors. Each student received a handwritten note from their sponsor that was placed in the pocket of their white coat for them to read.

Dr. Hal B. Jenson, the medical school’s founding dean, told the Class of 2021 that wearing their white coat “is not only an expectation, but it’s a privilege.” He said the cloaking of each student by their learning community scholar advisor should serve as a reminder to them of the confidence that each faculty member at the medical school has “that you will become a dedicated physician true to your oath and a credit to the profession.”

“As you recite the Class of 2021 Medical Student Oath … remember the words you pledge today before each other, the faculty, your family and friends. Today’s ceremony is more than a ritual; you are pledging to follow the oath that you recite today.”

At one point in his address to the students at the White Coat Ceremony, Dr. Kenter left the students with no illusions that their time in medical school will be easy. The undertaking before them, he said, will be hard.

“If it was easy, everyone would do it, right?” he said. “… You have to understand how to strategize to self-improve. You have to learn everything because it’s not about you anymore, it’s about learning for the patient. It’s going to be hard but this is your duty – you’re going to learn how to become a selfless leader.”

Still, with all of that in mind, near the end of his keynote address Dr. Kenter told the students to always seek a balance in their life between their work and their families. And, most importantly, he reminded them to not forget to have fun.

“These are the best times of your life,” he said. “Have fun.”

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