Sixty first-year students in Mercer University’s School of Medicine will receive their white coats and be welcomed into the medical profession Saturday at 11 a.m. in Savannah.

The Savannah campus white coat ceremony will take place in the newly renovated Mercer Auditorium on the first floor of the Mercer University Medical Education and Research Building at the William and Iffath Hoskins Center for Biomedical Research on the campus of Memorial University Medical Center.

“The white coat ceremony is a tradition that marks the beginning of a course of transformative education leading to the title of physician. It implies the acceptance of great responsibility, trust, compassion and a call to service,” said Jean R. Sumner, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine.

Bonzo Reddick, M.D., M.P.H., chief diversity officer and associate dean for diversity and inclusion for MUSM’s Savannah campus and associate professor of family medicine, will be keynote speaker. William F. Bina, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP, dean of MUSM’s Savannah campus, will cloak the 60 participants.

“Although these students have years of study ahead, this white coat ceremony will instill in them the importance of professionalism and empathy in medicine as they enter the medical community,” said Dr. Bina. “It represents the public acknowledgement by the students of the responsibilities of the profession and their willingness to assume such obligations in the presence of family, friends and faculty.”

This year, SunTrust has provided support for the School of Medicine’s white coat ceremonies in Savannah and Macon. The Macon ceremony will be held next Saturday.

“SunTrust is committed to helping people achieve their financial goals; it is at the forefront of everything we do around the communities we serve,” said David Camden, president, SunTrust Bank, Savannah Region. “The SunTrust Foundation shares this commitment and is proud to continue its support of these deserving and dedicated students at Mercer University’s School of Medicine as they begin their path toward financial confidence.”

The white coat ceremony was designed by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation as a way to welcome new medical students and set clear expectations regarding their primary role as physicians by professing an oath.

Today, the ceremony emphasizes the importance of compassionate care as well as scientific proficiency. The first white coat ceremony took place in 1993 at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. Since then, more than half of the nation’s medical schools have had some form of white coat ceremony.

MUSM’s new medical education and research facility at Memorial was dedicated in April. The $18 million Savannah campus expansion, which began in October 2014 and was completed in December 2015, includes renovation of approximately 26,500 square feet of classrooms, offices, research labs and library space in the Hoskins Center, as well as construction of 30,000 square feet of new space for additional classrooms, exam rooms and study areas. This expansion allows for a 50-percent increase in M.D. student enrollment – from 160 to 240 students – in Savannah, equaling the number of M.D. students on the Macon campus.