![\"White-Coat-Black-Lives\"](\"\/camed\/files\/2015\/07\/White-Coat-Black-Lives.jpg\")
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“By standing together at medical schools nationwide, we hope to demonstrate that the medical student community views racial violence as a public health issue,” said BUSM student Andy Hyatt to the more than 60 medical students gathered wearing their white coats in the Hiebert Lounge on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Dec. 10, which the United Nations declared as Human Rights Day back in 1950, medical students across the country organized \u201cWhite Coat Die-Ins\u201d to protest the police brutality in Ferguson, Missouri and New York. They wore their white coats and used the social media hashtag, #whitecoats4blacklives, to spotlight racial bias as a public health issue.<\/p>\n
Hyatt pointed out that this situation is particularly relevant to BUSM students because of the school\u2019s proud legacy of equal opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cOurs is the first medical school for women. We graduated the first African-American female physician, the first African-American psychiatrist, and the first Native American MD,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is also important to recall our hospitals diverse patient population and corresponding mission to provide ‘exceptional care without exception’.”<\/p>\n
After a student read the names and of people who have been the victims of police brutality, the students posed dead for four and a half minutes\u2014representing the four and a half hours that Michael Brown lay in the street after he was shot.<\/p>\n
![\"IMG_5945\"](\"\/camed\/files\/2014\/12\/IMG_5945-636x424.jpg\")
<\/a>Holding signs that read \u201cAm I Next?\u201d \u201cNo Justice, No Peace,\u201d \u201cWhite Coats for Black Lives,\u201d and \u201cRacism is a Public Health Epidemic\u201d they processed out of the front lobby of the medical school building into the rain on the Talbot Green where they began chanting, \u201cHands Up, Don\u2019t Shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n