Welcome to the Medical Profession

September 7, 2006

Members of the EVMS M.D. Class of 2010 received a formal welcome to the medical profession August 18 at the annual White Coat ceremony. As family and friends of the new students watched, department chairs helped the students into their coats for the first time. Dean Gerald Pepe congratulates Jennifer Skorupa as she prepares to leave the stage. The white coat is the universally recognized symbol of medicine. Students also recited the Oath of Hippocrates.

NORFOLK—For Elizabeth Bunton, the EVMS White Coat ceremony August 18 marked the beginning of payback time. Her North Carolina high-school-sweetheart husband, Tim, had put her through law school in Utah. Now she was returning the favor, moving to Virginia to put him through medical school.

Accompanied by their three-year-old son and 1½-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Bunton joined hundreds of mothers, fathers, wives and loved ones packing the McCombs Auditorium to watch 110 medical students don white coats and celebrate their entry into EVMS.

But before the new students went to the stage, Thomas Pellegrino, M.D., associate dean for education and professor and chairman of neurology, advised students that donning a white coat meant more than committing to a study of medical science.

A medical ethicist who lectures around the world, Pellegrino told students that becoming a doctor means dedicating one’s life to helping people facing catastrophic challenges.

While doctors have an obligation to keep abreast of the latest science and research, no truly skilled physician should “mistake good medical science for good medical care,” Pellegrino said.

Even doctors who participate in ground-breaking research during their studies at EVMS must remember that good medical care “is not about the treatment of disease, but about the treatment of sick people, and the relief of suffering,” Pellegrino said.

Putting on a white coat amounts to “a promise” to those patients, he said.

After the students put on their white coats, they recited the Oath of Hippocrates.

Pellegrino’s message made the beginning of medical school even more momentous for some whose matriculation resulted from years of hard work after years of detours.

Bruce Bauer, who got a bachelor of science degree at the University of Santa Barbara, spent seven years teaching biology at a California middle school and high school. Although he loved his job, he wanted to do more. “I wanted to start applying the skills that I was teaching,” he said.

By then, he had a wife, Julianne, and two daughters, Juliet and Ava. Pursuing that dream meant leaving an established career and getting a medical master's degree to bone up on the science courses he’d need for medical school. After completing a master's degree in biomedical sciences, he got into the EVMS M.D. program, an event he celebrated with his family, including a new member, six-month-old Daphne.

Bauer’s older daughters don’t quite grasp what it means to become a doctor, but sometimes say, “Daddy used to be a teacher, now he’s a student.”

Richard Kolb, a self-described “Army brat” born in Germany, also came to medicine late in life, at 35 years old, after he had a son, Erik.

Before applying for medical school, Kolb had a satisfying career in marketing and sales. That changed after he began to suffer symptoms of celiac disease, a condition characterized by a toxic intestinal reaction to wheat and related grains.

Several doctors who treated Kolb discounted the symptoms. In the end, Kolb felt he could do a better job helping patients. Kolb started to volunteer for emergency rooms, free clinics and a cancer center.

When Kolb told his wife, Baramon, he wanted to go to medical school, her response was, “Are you for real?”

He was. As he lingered with other new doctors at a post-ceremony reception, his family celebrated.

“He’s going to be a great doctor,” beamed his mother, Mary. “He’s going to make an enormous difference in the quality of life of his patients because of the compassion he has.”

For the Buntons, the tradeoff – law school for medical school – may not be entirely equitable. Medical school, after all, involves four years of study, plus several more years of residency training.

Still, both revel in the fact that they’ve helped each other develop careers that will give them a lifetime of satisfaction. As Tim Bunton put it, the one-time high-school sweethearts “are in it for the long haul.”

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