PROFESSIONAL CLOTHES: Medical student Mercedes Szpunar of Chicago (left) celebrates with first-year students Melissa Tsuboyama of New Rochelle, N.Y., and Robin Valpey of Hornell, N.Y., after Tsuboyama and Valpey were officially welcomed to the School of Medicine & Dentistry during the Dr. Robert L. and Lillian H. Brent White Coat Ceremony in August. Incoming medical students are formally inducted into the school each fall during the ceremony in which they receive their white coats—the traditional lab jackets worn by physicians and medical scientists—as a way to symbolize that the new students are joining their peers and predecessors in the profession.
