NEOUCOM White Coat Ceremony
Posted By RichC on September 3, 2006
On August 30, 2006 the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM) held it annual White Coat Ceremony where several awards to teaching professionals and the induction of the 2010 graduating class was acknowledged. Margaret Nora, M.D., J.D., president and dean of NEOUCOM offered words of advice and congratulations to the 123 inductees to a full auditorium. First year medical students (M1’s) are given their white coats by over 100 of the nations 145 medical schools and has been a honored tradition at NEOUCOM since 1995. As a proud father, my daughter (Katelyn – photo above) received her white coat on Wednesday night as well.
Since I keep this blog as a personal journal, it is only appropriate that I mention this milestone in my daughter’s education. Katelyn has spent the last two years completing her Bachelor of Science degree at Kent State University graduating Summa Cum Laude only a few weeks ago. The high pressure program has added significant stress to the normal growing up and attending college, but offers appropriate students an accelerated path that will shorten the many years of school associated with becoming a doctor.
Besides the advantage of accelerating ones undergraduate degree for competent students who know they want to pursue medicine as a profession, there is also the reduced stress of ‘knowing’ which medical school one will get accepted into. (that’s not to say that early acceptance into the NEOUCOM program is easy) I’ve known many pre-med graduates struggling to find a medical school that will accept them, even when they score well on the MCAT and have a sound undergraduate education. From the perspective of ‘number of pre-med graduates wanting to attend Med School’ to the ‘number of slots available’ … schools can be picky. The early acceptance program offered by some medical schools can take a bit of that pressure off.
From a parents and the dollar ‘n’ sense perspective, the advantage of reducing a 4-year undergraduate degree to two, reduces cost at a time where affording a college education is beyond the reach of many families. I’ve read about and seen too many weak students working through college and exiting with unmanageable debt … often at the sacrifice of their families. I also know too many students, whether it is due needing to grow up or a just a change of major, that requires a fifth year to complete their undergraduate education; for that I’m thankful that my daughter had a focus and goal early on in life and the ability to chip away toward that end. Sure there is second guessing that one is moving too fast and missing out on the ‘costly recreation’ that comes with a more relaxed approach toward a college education … but from the perspective of middle-age, being a bit more aggressive now will pay off since there is so much more school ahead.
Our conversation returned to diesels as I commented on some of the other entries, or at least ‘talked about’ entries that might be coming to North America. One of the VW relatives will be the remodel Audi TT who has indicated it will be putting a diesel in the TT after the 
After beginning to move Atlantis toward the assembly building this morning at 10am, NASA officials have changed their mind due to tropical storm Ernesto’s westernly path. They are now returning the Shuttle Atlantis to Launch Pad 39B. By around 8 p.m. EDT tonight the move back to the pad should be complete and and “mission managers are confident in the ability of the rotating service structure to protect the vehicle on the pad.” Leroy Cain, launch intergration manager, indicated that earlier today (Tuesday) that the “forecast was just not quite good enough,” but that with the change in predicted path that the winds should not be a problem. At 2:40 pm the Shuttle Atlantis began the return trip to the launch pad atop the crawler transporter.
I’ve been planning to write down some thoughts and include some personal photos from our recent 
As we continued to climb toward our lunch spot we shifted into 4 wheel drive and noticed the vegetation disappear until the landscape started to look like another planet. The air started to thin and on went our sweatshirts — brrr from Hawaii! Along the way we noticed the different rock formations included something called “lava bombs” which are chucks of molten rock blasted years ago from the volcano when it was active. My son 
The observatories are at the top of the volcano, well sort of, as there is a hiking trail that heads down and then back up again to finally reach the pinned summit. Despite the cold and thin air at nearly 14,000 feet, we all were able to climb to the peak. At this peak is was eerie and quiet. Again, an alter was built to worship the volcano gods by the native Hawaiians … it has relatively fresh flowers, etc so it must still be used today? (Photo: Taylor at 13,796 feet below)
Adem Ruden, from the 
