Dear Students:
With great disappointment, we write to let you know that we will be cancelling the White Coat Ceremony, planned for this coming Sunday, August 8, 2021, due to the continued surge of COVID-19 Delta Variant cases in the Bay Area and in communities across the nation.
The White Coat Ceremony celebrates a significant accomplishment and a rite of passage: the transition from undergraduate student to future doctor. With that transition comes the immediate responsibility to protect the health of our patients, their families, and the front-line workers that they rely on to be there for them when they are sick. As much as we look forward to this ceremony, we must accept our professional responsibility to put the needs of our public’s health ahead of our desires to celebrate together.
Please realize that the cancellation of an in-person White Coat Ceremony does not diminish your accomplishments. Moreover, we will redouble our commitment to supporting you through this transition and beyond.
We have charged your outstanding Student Experience Team with planning a virtual ceremony that can be shared with your loved ones. To ensure a high-quality event, we anticipate this will be held sometime in September. Before that time, each student will be “coated” by your CMC coach, welcoming you into the learning community that will be one of your professional homes throughout medical school.
We are grateful to have assembled a class of committed, compassionate, and collaborative students. Despite the cancellation of the in-person ceremony, we know that all of you and your loved ones recognize the momentous significance of entering medical school and are ready to focus on the exciting learning ahead.
Please do plan to pick up your white coat today and have your photo taken by our photographer to acknowledge this important entry into the medical profession. We will include this photo in our virtual white coat ceremony.
Thank you for your support of the UCSF community as we work together to put this pandemic behind us.
Sincerely,
Talmadge E. King, Jr., MD
Dean, School of Medicine
Catherine R. Lucey, MD, MACP
Vice Dean for Medical Education
Executive Vice Dean for the School of Medicine
