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Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

M.D. Program

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
White Coat Ceremony

The School of Medicine and the Colleges Advisory Program actively support students in their transformational journey to becoming physicians, and the White Coat Ceremony marks an important milestone on this path. The presentation and cloaking of the white coat – a symbolic mantle of the medical profession – confers a commitment to the cherished values of being a physician: humanism, compassion, altruism, leadership, excellence and devotion to the well-being of others.

Class of 2027 White Coat Ceremony

April 26, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.

Watch the Recording

Speaker Information

Turner Auditorium at 720 Rutland Avenue
Parking is available in the Washington Street Garage
Map of Campus

Class of 2027 White Coat Ceremony

Students celebrate the ceremony
Students celebrate the ceremony
Student is coated
Students celebrate the ceremony
Students and staff celebrate the ceremony
Dr. DeWeese congratulates a student

Past Ceremonies

Statement of Values

The purpose of this Statement of Values is to outline principles that the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Class of 2025 will abide by during their medical training and throughout their careers.

Read the Values

History of the White Coat

Today, the long white laboratory coat is an international symbol of the biomedical community. A century ago, the medical service changed drastically when leading physicians were expected to be both researchers and scientists. White coats were adopted to emphasize cleanliness and professionalism. The white coat was first worn by a new generation of physician-scientists.

The scientific revolution in medicine was a founding principle of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. William Welch, the first Chief of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, insisted that his trainees follow the scientific method in their research. At the same time, Sir William Osler, the first Physician-in-Chief, emphasized cleanliness in his historic textbook The Principles and Practice of Medicine.

A collection of white coats on hangers.

Did You Know?

The first white coat ceremony occurred in 1993 at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Medical students received a short white coat to emphasize their years of training. In recent years, a number of medical colleges around the world began holding coating ceremonies for their terminal degree candidates, including those working towards their Doctor of Philosophy degree. At the heart of these ceremonies is the recitation of a student oath, a pledge to uphold the same values of integrity, professionalism, and scholarship that inspired the white coat 100 years ago. The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions use this occasion to mark the achievements of our doctoral candidates, and to charge them to remember the ideals upon which their scientific endeavors should stand.

A graduate student receives his white coat.

Featured Guest SpeakerJoseph V. Sakran, MD, MPH, MPA, FACS

Dr. Sakran is a trailblazer and nationally respected voice in the firearm injury prevention movement. He is currently the Executive Vice Chair of Surgery, Director of Clinical Operations, Director of Emergency General Surgery, and Associate Professor of Surgery and Nursing at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. As a survivor of firearm-related violence, he was motivated to become a surgeon, researcher, and advocate in firearm injury prevention. At every turn of his career, he has used his personal experience and substantial skills to push a new frontier primarily in service of marginalized communities in the United States. The Academy Health recognized his research on firearm-related injury with the Outstanding Article of the Year Award. Dr. Sakran served as a National Academy of Medicine Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in the U.S. Senate during the COVID-19 pandemic guiding historic legislation. As a Senior Fellow at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Dr. Sakran was instrumental in creation of the Health Equity Tracker. In 2019, Dr. Sakran was named a Presidential Leadership Scholar in which he furthered his research on safe gun storage. He was also a 2020 recipient of Johns Hopkins' Catalyst Award for his pioneering research on physicians' role in educating patients on safe gun storage. He was instrumental in helping shepherd the legislation that led to the passage of the first federal firearm injury prevention legislation in nearly 30 years, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Dr. Sakran was instrumental in laying the foundation for the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention that was launched by President Biden in September of 2023. He has demonstrated & trained healthcare professionals on how to effectively communicate the data & science to drive social change. He has testified before U.S. Congress, and other Federal and State agencies on Firearm injury prevention. Most recently, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for his innovative work and exceptional leadership in firearm injury prevention, which has been most instrumental in establishing the urgency and intellectual foundation to drive research and evidence-based policy change at the local, state, and federal level.

Joseph V. Sakran, MD, MPH, MPA, FACS