Future doctors received their white coats this Saturday at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science annual white coat ceremony in South LA. KNX News’ Nataly Tavidian reported from the event.
“I didn’t see a lot of people like me in the medical field,” student doctor Temiloluwa Adanlawo told Tavidian. “I oftentimes saw that there were not Black men in those fields, and I want to be the Black man in that field that shows younger generations that they are able to be a doctor.”
This year the Charles R. Drew University ceremony recognized 60 students who are just beginning their journeys into the medical field. Dr. Pamela Simms-Mackey, chair of pediatrics and chief of graduate medical education at Alameda Health System, and the first Black woman president of the American Board of Pediatrics, delivered the keynote address.
Many of the students at the university come from underserved communities. Like Adanlawo, they are not just focused on careers in medicine, they also want to give back to the communities they come from, to help close California’s physician gap, and to face challenges posed by cuts to medical education across the nation.