Student Affairs and Resources

White Coat Ceremony

The White Coat Ceremony, initiated in 1993 at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons with the support of the Arthur Gold Foundation, has become common practice in US medical schools. The ceremony is a rite of passage for first year medical students, designed to inculcate the values of professionalism, humanism, and compassionate patient care. It is the official welcome to the medical profession and to the Temple family.

In the ceremony, students are "cloaked" in their first white coats in the presence of family members, friends and school faculty. The program includes greetings by medical school deans; explorations of the meaning of professionalism by an array of speakers representing the perspectives of medical school faculty, alumni, the community, patients and ethicists; and taking of an oath based upon the 1948 Declaration of Geneva.

For students, it provides a vivid realization that they are, in fact, medical students and future physicians and serves as a rite of passage into the profession of medicine.

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