Burrell College welcomes 204 new student physicians

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) - The White Coat ceremony is a milestone in the career for medical students. Tonight Burrell College of Health Sciences will host more than 200 new student physicians as the put on their white coats for the first time.

The white coat represents the medical students' commitment to the field. Burrell College of Health Sciences says the ceremony emphasizes the school's mission of preparing skilled physicians that are compassionate and will offer these services to the underserved communities in the region.

"I chose Burrell College because I started my my education here in Las Cruces and so for me coming to Burrell, it's a full circle moment. And just being able to really thrive here in my community, being able to have my support system, my family here, and the staff here, you know, you can tell that they're here to support the students," said Andreya Hesser, student physician.

Hesser and her fellow student physicians say that being able to learn to heal in a community where there is an obvious need for health care professionals is important to them.

"I'm a very social person and I believe that I can bring a certain bedside. manner and etiquette to emergency medicine that can be lost sometimes, um, but I think that being able to be there for someone in their hardest moment is an amazing opportunity and something that I'm gonna study really hard to to be very extremely good at," said Joseph D'Angelo who is looking forward to specializing in emergency medicine.

Orientation for the Class of 2030 began this week with what administrators describe as extreme enthusiasm from both staff and students.

"This is one of the best days of the year," said Burrell College of Health Science President, John Hummer. It also marks the beginning of a new addition and name change for the school. "In addition to our school of Osteopathic Medicine we have our School of Health Professions and with the school of Health Professions will be launching additional health science degree programs that are focused on the communities that we serve and the hospitals and clinical partners that we work with to make sure that we're responding to their needs in the area of additional health care professions physicians."

So far 1,034 physicians have graduated from Burrell College.