Grads hear words of hope
amid economic challenges
BY MIKE GOODKIND
In spite of daunting
economic challenges for the field of health care and the
lure of Silicon Valley careers, faculty and student
speakers at the School of Medicine's Convocation 2000
offered new graduates hope for both academic medicine and
the future of patient care.
Heart transplant pioneer
Norman Shumway, MD, PhD, one of two commencement
speakers, quipped that he was "maybe the only
faculty member without a company or a patent," and
urged graduates "not to catch Silicon Valley
fever" by leaving medicine for more lucrative but
arguably less beneficial careers.
"If we fail to
produce talented new scientists, we are bankrupt.
Stanford, at least as far as its students are concerned,
is solvent," said Stanley Falkow, PhD, professor of
microbiology and immunology, and Sunday's second speaker.
Both commencement speakers
were Stanford faculty members. Falkow, represented the
basic sciences, while Shumway represented clinical
sciences.
"You are the first
inheritors of the complete genomic sequence," Falkow
told the new graduates. He noted that the
soon-to-be-completed sequencing of human DNA offers
enormous potential as a tool for research and clinical
achievements.
Shumway, the Douglass and
Nola Leishman Professor in Cardiovascular Disease, talked
about current problems in the health care system that new
clinicians will have to face:
"Your predecessors,
my colleagues, have brought health care almost to a
standstill. The HMO [health maintenance organization]
virus is one of the worst unnatural disasters of our
time. The HMOs are making a killing figuratively and
literally. Never before has personal freedom been so
restricted in this country. The freedom of the patient to
select his or her own physician may require an amendment
to the bill of rights. HMOs have failed both in patient
care and in reducing costs. Something must be done."
In spite of his bleak
outlook, Shumway expressed confidence that Stanford
graduates are qualified to take on these and many other
challenges.
"In the education of
[Stanford medical] students, arts and sciences have been
brought together beautifully. It's one merger that has
really worked," he said.
James Brewer, speaking on
behalf of new MDs, said he learned about the Stanford
tradition of caring when he received his first backrub
after a long day on the trail during a medical school
orientation hike in the Sierra. His fellow students
"people who truly wanted to help others feel
good" gave each other backrubs throughout the
trip, Brewer said.
In his remarks at Sunday's
ceremony, Eugene Bauer, MD, vice president of the Medical
Center and dean of the School of Medicine, noted that in
Stanford's tradition of nurturing physician scholars, six
students received both MD and PhD degrees, while four
others received MDs after securing a PhD earlier.
The School of Medicine's
Convocation 2000 placed a special emphasis on the basic
sciences as PhD recipients were "hooded" by
their faculty mentors with the symbolic placement of the
scarf that indicates the graduate's school a national
tradition new to Stanford's Medical School.
This year's graduating
class was typical in size and composition 89 MD, 64
PhD and 24 master of science candidates.
In his remarks, Bauer
challenged the students to pursue "education
throughout life to become the leaders you have been
prepared to be." SR
|
