text: (Joplin, MO) – Kansas City University – Joplin (KCU) will host their official white coating ceremony on Saturday, July 30 at the Joplin High School Performing Arts Center, 2104 S. Indiana Avenue. There will be two ceremonies, one at 9:00 to 10:30 am and one from 1:00 to 2:30 pm.
  Dr. Robert McNab, Vice President of Medical Education at Freeman Health System, will serve as keynote speaker. McNab also serves as the director of COVID care at Freeman, managing both an isolation ICU unit, TCU, and a step-down unit devoted to the care of COVID patients.
  The White Coating Ceremony marks the beginning of a student’s medical school career. The ceremony is a touching and significant event, symbolizing the first steps in the noble journey of becoming a physician. Student doctors will receive their white coats from KCU faculty and guest doctors before taking the Osteopathic Oath.
  The ceremony is especially meaningful to KCU in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated an urgent need for more physicians and exposed inequities in health care.
  KCU will hold separate ceremonies for the class of 2025 and 2026, due to the cancellation of White Coating ceremonies last year as the community was in the midst of a COVID-19 surge.
  Media is welcome to attend. Masks are highly recommended and will be available.
  About Kansas City University
  Kansas City University, founded in 1916, is a fully accredited, private not-for-profit health sciences university with Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, Biosciences and a developing College of Dental Medicine. The College of Osteopathic Medicine is the eighth largest medical school in the U.S., the ninth most impactful medical school for primary care for the nation, the tenth most affordable of private medical colleges, and the leading producer of physicians for the State of Missouri. The College of Osteopathic Medicine has two sites strategically located on the University’s campuses in Kansas City and Joplin, Missouri, to address the growing needs of both urban and rural populations. The University offers multiple graduate degrees; a doctor of osteopathic medicine; a doctor of psychology in clinical psychology; a master of arts in bioethics; a master of science in the biomedical sciences; a master of business administration in partnership with Rockhurst University; a new master of public health in partnership with the University of Nebraska Medical Center; and plans to seat the first doctor of dental medicine students in 2023.
  Haley Reardon, Manager of Marketing and Communications
  Kansas City University