The Pritzker School of Medicine on Sunday welcomed 92 new students to the University of Chicago in the 37th White Coat Ceremony at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, marking an important moment in the students’ journeys to a career in medicine.
With nearly every row of the historic chapel filled with family and friends, the entering Class of 2025 took part in the traditional ceremony founded at the University of Chicago in 1989 and now held widely across U.S. medical schools. After receiving their first white coats from their faculty career advisors, the new MD and MD/PhD candidates, together with all physicians in attendance, recited the modified Hippocratic Oath for the first time.
In a keynote address, Kenneth Wilson, MD, encouraged the new students to wear their white coats with pride, as a symbol of all the hard work they have put in to reach this point. A Professor of Surgery at the University of Chicago and a Colonel in the U.S. Army, Wilson also drew parallels with his extensive military service—including overseas tours in Africa, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan—and experience treating victims of gun violence on the South Side, imploring students to remain cognizant of what the white coat represents to those in their care.
“Wear it as a uniform,” Wilson said. “Today, it is pressed, it is clean. It’s not tie-dyed; it’s not stained with coffee. … Do not let the luster of this moment fade with the luster of your uniform.
“Let it be a reflection of your professionalism.”
Wilson further reminded students learn from each other with humility to continue improving as their careers progress, sharing a line from the book of Proverbs.
"Iron sharpens iron," Wilson said. "Do not lose track of each other; support each other."
Now a rite of passage among medical students in the U.S., the White Coat Ceremony began at the University of Chicago in 1989. That year, Norma Wagoner, PhD, then Pritzker’s Dean of Students, and Holly J. Humphrey, MD, MACP, then Pritzker’s Dean for Medical Education, led the country’s first White Coat Ceremony, with Humphrey delivering the keynote address. The tradition was later adopted and formalized by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, which now supports similar events at medical and nursing schools around the country and across the world.
The new class includes 82 MD candidates, eight MD/PhD candidates in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), and two MD/PhD candidates in the program in Medicine, Social Sciences, and Humanities (MeSH).
The Pritzker School of Medicine is grateful for the support of the Bucksbaum-Siegler Institute for Clinical Excellence for the stethoscopes the students received, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for the pins that were provided on the white coat to symbolize humanism in medicine, and the Medical Biological Sciences Alumni Association for their support of the White Coat Ceremony.