UofM Duluth White Coat Ceremony - The History

(Pictured above: Ryan Smith, Anna Fuglestad, Courtney Klinkhammer, and August Lindmark attended the Duluth white coat ceremony as GHHS representatives.)

63 medical students received their white coats on Saturday, August 19th at the Weber Music Hall on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. It was a wonderful event, with multiple inspiring speeches from Robin Michaels, Ph.D. (from the Duluth campus), Dr. Michael Kim, MD (from the TC campus), and Dr. Joseph Bianco, MD.

Our own GHHS member, August Lindmark, also gave a speech about the importance of the history in medicine and various iterations of the question, "what has happened?" He discussed the impact of our own personal histories on how we view the stories of others and what details we choose to pay attention to. He talked about the statistic that 80% of our health is determined by social, environmental, and economic forces; and how, at times, medicine's focus is too narrow on strictly biomedical knowledge, instead of focusing on community and social factors that influence health. He encouraged these 63 incoming medical students to study the science of medicine intently, but also to pay attention to the aspects of life outside the clinic that may influence our patients' health.