School of Pharmacy Holds White Coat Ceremony

Baltimore, Md., September 22, 2009 --- College of Notre Dame of Maryland School of Pharmacy will host its first White Coat Ceremony on Saturday, October 3, at 10 a.m. in LeClerc Auditorium.

The White Coat Ceremony is the School of Pharmacy students’ formal induction into the profession. At the ceremony, each student will receive a white coat from the dean, Dr. Anne Y.F. Lin, and her/his adviser, sign the pharmacy code of ethics and as a group recite the Student Pharmacist Pledge of Professionalism.

Daniel M. Ashby, senior director of pharmacy at Johns Hopkins Hospitals, will be the keynote speaker at the ceremony.

The ceremony is being held in early October, which is American Pharmacists Month.

College of Notre Dame of Maryland School of Pharmacy welcomed its first class in August. Nearly 500 students applied for the 70 seats in the first class. It’s the first pharmacy school on the campus of a women’s college in the United States and the second one in Maryland. Students in the inaugural class came from 15 states, including California, Texas, Washington and Florida.

There are four focus areas that the School of Pharmacy uses as the basis for its curriculum: leadership development; women’s health across the lifespan; public health and the care of diverse populations; and professionalism.

The School of Pharmacy is a four-year, first professional degree program (doctor of pharmacy) consisting of 148 credit hours of study on campus. Experiences in clinical settings are integrated throughout the program, and the entire fourth year is dedicated to advanced pharmacy practice experiences.