COM celebrates 30th anniversary, welcomes Class of 2011

(COLLEGE STATION, TX) — Opened in 1977 and still the youngest medical school in the state, the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine will celebrate its 30th anniversary Friday and Saturday, July 27-28, with a variety of events that include a time capsule sealing, class reunions and white coat ceremony.

Festivities begin Friday at 5 p.m. with the sealing of a time capsule, followed by a casual, family-friendly dinner and visit from Reveille, the Texas A&M University mascot and “First Lady of Aggieland.” Bill Bertrand and the Country Magic Band will provide entertainment. Christopher C. Colenda, M.D., M.P.H., Jean and Thomas McMullin Dean of Medicine, will give the welcome in the courtyard of the Joe H. Reynolds Medical Building on the West Campus of Texas A&M University. Admission for HSC-COM faculty, staff, alumni and students is free, but tickets are required.

Saturday begins with a white coat ceremony for incoming medical students to signify the beginning of their medical education. Randall J. Urban, M.D., Class of ’82 and chairman of internal medicine at The University of Texas Medical Branch, is featured speaker at 10 a.m. at the Thomas R. Frymire Auditorium in the Leonore and Walter Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in the George Bush Library Complex. A reception follows in the conference center lobby.

Also Saturday, a reception from 5:30-7 p.m. in the George Bush Library Complex rotunda precedes the 30th anniversary celebration and reunion dinner from 7-9 p.m. at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, is keynote speaker. The Class of 1982 will be honored for its 25th reunion, along with the classes of 1987, 1992, 1997 and 2002. Dinner is $80, and reservations are required.

Members of the 1977 charter class of 32 students received their Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degrees through Texas A&M University in 1981. Two years later, the College of Medicine moved into the new Reynolds Medical Building, followed by the adjacent Medical Sciences Library.

In 1999, the College of Medicine joined the newly created Texas A&M Health Science Center and, to date, more than 1,300 physicians have earned the distinction of becoming “Aggie Docs.” The HSC-COM occupies facilities in College Station and the Scott & White campus in Temple, currently accepting 100 medical and 15-20 graduate students per academic year.

Following approved plans to incrementally increase the medical class size to 200 students, the HSC-COM will accept 135 students to begin their studies next fall. There also will be a new two-year clinical campus in Round Rock to complement full four-year programs in both College Station and Temple.

This month, the Class of 2011 will begin its studies with 100 M.D. and five M.D./Ph.D. students coming to the Bryan-College Station and Temple campuses, the largest group of incoming students to date.

The Texas A&M Health Science Center provides the state with health education, outreach and research. Its six components located in communities throughout Texas are Baylor College of Dentistry, the College of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, and the School of Rural Public Health.