Thursday, July 19, 2021, marked a pivotal moment in the lives of 176 physicians-to-be. Members of the Loma Linda University School of Medicine (LLUSM) class of 2025, with family, friends, and faculty in attendance, received their white coats—the symbolic first step in their four-year journey to becoming physicians and alumni of LLUSM.

Prior to the receiving of coats, assistant professor of medicine Shammah Williams ’11 gave an address in which he asked the incoming medical students to remember, “The white coat doesn’t make you. It’s the virtues of the one who wears the white coat that makes all the difference. Compassion, humility, respect, integrity, self-sacrifice, and thankfulness… define an excellent physician.”

The ceremony closed with Tamara L. Thomas ’87 leading the students in a recitation of the physician’s oath.