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The White Coat Ceremony for the Class of 2027 will take place in Fall 2024; date/time/location to be announced in Spring 2024. Contact Scarlett Parnell, Event Planner for the Offices of Medical Student Education (scarlett_parnell@med.unc.edu) with questions.

2026 White Coat Ceremony

Congratulations, Class of 2026!

The White Coat Ceremony marks your initiation into the world of healthcare. As you don your crisp white coat for the first time, embrace the responsibilities and commitment that come with the privilege of caring for others’ health.



History of the White Coat Ceremony

The first White Coat Ceremony was held at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York in 1993, supported by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation. The purpose of the ceremony is to clarify for students, prior to their entrance into the medical community that a physician’s responsibility is to both take care of patients and also to care for patients. In other words, doctors should care as well as cure.

Capturing students’ attention at a strategic and impressionable moment, it is important that family members and friends are invited to attend the ceremony. An inspiring address by an eminent physician sets the tone for the ceremony in which distinguished faculty and administrators from the medical school cloak students with their first white coats. Students recite a student-written adaptation of the Hippocratic Oath appropriate for their status as students, pledging to lead lives of compassion, uprightness, and honor. The ceremony is designed to stress the importance of the doctor-patient relationship and to foster a psychological contract in which each student accepts responsibility to be technically excellent, committed to the profession, and compassionate with patients.

Event Details

Directions

Memorial Hall is located at 208 E Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill, NC 27599.

Take 15-501S towards Chapel Hill.
Once in Chapel Hill, when the road forks, exit right onto Franklin Street.
Turn left onto Raleigh Street.
Turn at the next right onto Cameron Avenue.
Memorial Hall will be on your left.
Take I-40W towards Chapel Hill.
Exit onto NC-54W, exit 273A, toward Chapel Hill.
When you reach campus, turn right onto Country Club Dr.
This road turns into Cameron Ave.
Memorial Hall will be on your left.
Take I-40E towards Chapel Hill.
Take the NC-86 exit, exit 266, toward Chapel Hill.
You will now be on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Follow this road approximately 3.5 miles into downtown Chapel Hill.
Turn left onto Cameron Avenue.
Memorial Hall will be on the right.

Parking

The Morehead Planetarium Lot is located on Franklin Street and is a short walk across McCorkle Place from Memorial Hall. This is a pay lot and is first-come, first-served.
The Bell Tower parking lot is located on South Road near the Bell Tower and is a short walk across Polk Place to Memorial Hall. This lot is free and is first-come, first-served.
There are more than 475 off street parking spaces within the Town of Chapel Hill downtown area. The cost for these lots varies by location.

  • Rosemary st. Deck – 150 E Rosemary St
  • Municipal Lot 2 – 100 E Rosemary St
  • Municipal Lot 3 – 415 W Franklin St
  • Municipal Lot 4 – 104 W Rosemary St
  • Municipal Lot 5 – 108 Church St & W Rosemary St
  • Municipal Lot 6 – 127 W Rosemary St

Public Transportation

Buses on Chapel Hill Transit are free of charge to riders and provide a quick, convenient way to travel throughout town. Several routes serve the Franklin Street area and can be found on the Chapel Hill Transit website.

Accessibility Information

Patrons with limited mobility may be dropped off along Cameron Avenue directly in front of Memorial Hall.
Memorial Hall offers wheelchair-accessible seating.