ECU’s Brody School of Medicine welcomes new class of medical students
Incoming medical students recite the Physician’s Pledge during the ECU Brody School of Medicine’s annual White Coat Ceremony Friday morning. (Photos by ECU News Services)
The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University officially welcomed 86 new medical students – all North Carolina residents – during its annual White Coat Ceremony on Friday morning.
This year’s class was selected from a competitive field of 1,075 applicants – a record amount for the 42-year-old medical school.
In front of their families, friends and loved ones, the students were individually donned with the white coats they will wear in patient care areas throughout their time at ECU.
“With this cloaking, we welcome you into a community in which you will accept the obligations inherent in the practice of medicine: to be excellent in science, to be compassionate and to lead lives of ‘uprightness and honor,’” Dr. Mark Stacy, dean of Brody and vice chancellor for ECU Health Sciences, told the students during the ceremony.
The students hail from a total of 26 North Carolina counties – from Buncombe in the west to Pasquotank and Carteret counties in the east – and 24 different undergraduate institutions.
Forty-five percent of the Class of 2023 are minority students and 30 percent are from minority groups – African-American, Native American and Hispanic or Latino – that the Association of American Medical Colleges considers “underrepresented in medicine.” The class is 51 percent female and ranges in age from 20 to 44.
Greenville native Ghita Harris wanted to become a physician from an early age and spent two summers during high school working on medical research projects at Brody alongside ECU faculty. But when she did not initially get into medical school out of college, she elected to go to law school instead and spent eight years as a criminal defense attorney.
When her mother, Fannie, became seriously ill following a kidney transplant in 2015, Harris said it provided her the inspiration she needed to follow her heart. She closed her law practice and began retaking the prerequisite courses she needed in order to apply to medical school again.
On Friday morning, while proudly wearing her white coat, she reflected on her journey, honored her late mother and again took aim at her future.
“It’s surreal to be fulfilling my dream. To have come totally full circle – from being here in high school and to be back here now – is unbelievable,” Harris said after the ceremony. “Now I just want to make Brody proud for giving me this opportunity.”
Kayla Mayes grew up in a two-bedroom house in Winston-Salem with her parents and three siblings. She remembers when the family could not afford furniture other than a mattress to sleep on. She remembers the empty refrigerator and her parents struggling to keep the power on.
Dr. Amanda Higginson, assistant dean for student affairs at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine, dons incoming medical student Joshua Scarcella with the white coat he will wear in patient areas during his medical education, as Brody Dean Mark Stacy looks on.
On Friday, Mayes was one of three Brody Scholars to be presented a white coat. The Brody Scholar award is ECU’s most prestigious scholarship and provides each recipient with four years of medical school tuition, living expenses and the opportunity to design his or her own summer enrichment program that can include travel abroad.
“It’s not often that you find someone from my background able to not only graduate high school, but to go even further to graduate college with a four-year degree. And to be accepted into a medical school and then to be able to compete with great candidates (for the Brody scholarship) is truly an amazing opportunity for me,” Mayes said.
“Coming from my background, my parents really engrained in me the value of a dollar. So receiving full tuition was definitely huge for me,” she added. “By being able to have more flexibility with my income after I become a physician – because of this scholarship and not having to pay back student loans – I’ll be able to pour more of those resources, and more of my focus, into other peoples’ lives and paying it forward.”
Since the Brody Scholars Program began in 1983, about 75 percent of Brody Scholars have remained in North Carolina to practice, and the majority of those are in eastern North Carolina.
While the students have already excelled in many areas in order to earn their white coats, Dr. Claudia Daly, clinical assistant professor in ECU’s Department of Emergency Medicine and president of the school’s Alumni Society, provided them a glimpse of the endless possibilities that still lie ahead by sharing several examples of nationally recognized achievements of Brody alumni.
“While our country is amazed by the outstanding things we have accomplished, we know that we are the fabric of eastern North Carolina and the model for how to provide care through kindness, compassion, respect and resiliency. For all that is what matters to our patients,” Daly said. “We are the doctors who practiced all week, are on call and work at the Greenville Community Shelter for free on weekends. We navigate complex situations in order to provide care for our patients who have limited or no resources.
“We care about the little things,” she added. “And we accept the challenge that North Carolina needs us right here.”
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