USU Vet Med Class of 2029 Takes Part in White Coat Ceremony

When students head back to school, a new coat is often on the shopping list. The incoming class of 2029 in the College of Veterinary Medicine already has that taken care of.

The 42 first-year students participated in the traditional White Coat Ceremony on Aug. 16 at the Eccles Conference Center, receiving white lab coats to signify their entry into the veterinary profession. The event capped off a week of orientation activities that began several weeks before Utah State University’s Aug. 25 start.

Spontaneous cheers erupted after Dr. Heloisa Rutigliano, one of the event’s speakers and associate dean of academic programs for the college, introduced “the inaugural class of the four-year program in veterinary medicine at Utah State University.”

As the dean of the college, Dr. Dirk Vanderwall, later noted, this has been over 100 years in the making, because USU intended to offer a DVM program since 1907.

Back then, the veterinary school’s establishment was thwarted by a requirement to have four veterinarians on staff; there were only two at what was then called the Agricultural College of Utah.

In 2012, the Washington-Idaho-Montana-Utah Regional Program in Veterinary Medicine allowed USU students to study for two years at USU and two years at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, to complete their Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree.

This year’s class will be the first ever to complete all four years of their DVM in Utah. Construction is about a year away from completion at 1400 North and 1200 East in Logan, the site of the new, 106,000 square-foot Veterinary Medical Education Building that will be the college’s home.

Doing the “coating,” or helping students don their white coats, were Dr. Nate Whiting, president of the Utah Veterinary Medical Association, and Dr. Boyd Spratling, past president of the Nevada Veterinary Medical Association.

Some students invited their mentors or other influential figures to join them onstage and present them with their coats. Madyson Mickelsen chose a special guest: Dr. Ira Mickelsen, her dad. He is a veterinarian at Bear River Animal Hospital in Tremonton, Utah, and owns a farm with 20 “mother cows” and other animals. Madyson is his first of five children.

“She’s the first and probably only one to follow in my footsteps, so it’s really special,” Ira said. “She’s worked at my clinic for the past several years as a tech, and then she always was in my truck, growing up, for all the different calls I’d go on.”

In the ceremony’s finale, the USU students together recited the Veterinary Student Oath, which states, in part: “I promise to work conscientiously to develop my scientific and medical knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through protection of animal health, the relief of animal suffering, the conservation of animal resources, the promotion of public health, and the advancement of medical knowledge.”

Xander Hemmert, president of the Class of 2028, remembered his experience from last year’s White Coat Ceremony clearly.

“For me, it was an opportunity to show myself and those close to me how far I’ve come, and where I’m headed next,” he said. “Getting to this point is so much work, and having time to celebrate all of our hard work was very special to me.”