The Medical School for International Health, part of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Faculty of Health Sciences, held its seventeenth Physician Oath ceremony last week.
Members of the class of 2018 took their oath, where they promise to adhere to a high code of conduct, at the start of their medical school studies, in keeping with the MSIH’s focus on global health and humanistic approach to medical care. Students pledge to ‘practice their profession with conscience and dignity’ and also create a set of additional, class-specific vows related to patient care. The class consists of students from many countries, including the United States, Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, India and Australia.
They had an average GPA of 3.57 and an average MCAT score of 31. Over 31% of the students in the entering class hold advanced degrees and over 80% of the class have volunteered, studied or worked internationally. This year, four first-year medical students at the MSIH have been awarded four-year tuition scholarships as recognition of their academic and personal accomplishments.
Keynote speaker at this year’s ceremony was MSIH alumna Katherine Horan, MD, MPH (pictured below), who graduated from the MSIH in 2012 and is currently a second-year resident in the Department of Pediatrics at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Dr. Horan was an active member on the Global Health and Medicine working group while at the Medical School for International Health, and presented her research on the changes made to the curriculum at the Global Health Education Consortium’s annual meeting in 2010. Her poster “Feasibility of Implementation and Systematic Evaluation of a Structured Global Health Curriculum” was awarded first prize.
The day before the ceremony Dr. Horan delivered the lecture “Global Perspectives on Refugee Health” which was attended by medical students and faculty from both the MSIH and BGU’s Israeli counterpart, the Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School.
After the ceremony, the entire student body sat down for a formal dinner outside in front of the Faculty of Health Sciences building, to celebrate the commencement of their studies.
Gallery of pictures from the Ceremony on our Facebook page
