printable versionCommencement ceremony filled with pride, joy, relief and calls to action
Members of class of 2005 told that medical science is counting on their future contributions to research?and their political advocacy
BY JONATHAN RABINOVITZ
A blissful Kari Dickinson holds her 2-year-old daughter Audrey while receiving her doctoral hood from Julie Baker, assistant professor of genetics.
The graduates at the School of Medicine had spent years working to get to the moment on Saturday when they were handed their diplomas, but the commencement ceremony was as much about the responsibilities that lie ahead as it was a celebration of the milestone they had just reached.
Under a giant white tent on the Dean's Lawn, a crowd of about 1,400 cheered enthusiastically as their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and spouses took the stage to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance." Air horns blasted and cameras clicked as student after student stepped forward to have their doctoral hoods—royal blue and cardinal for PhDs, kelly green and cardinal for MDs—placed over their heads by members of the faculty.
With beaming smiles and moist eyes, many of the graduates seemed as if they had taken to heart the words offered earlier in the speech from their classmate, Karine Gibbs, who was about to receive her doctorate in microbiology and immunology. "The joy of completion wipes away most of the tribulations of graduate school," she said. In the coming days, she added, they should all celebrate: "Enjoy much sun, much softball and the joy of being done."
Yet Gibbs and others acknowledged that the graduates' work was not truly done but just entering a new and even more challenging phase. Many of the students on the stage would be leaving in a matter of days to begin residencies, and those with newly minted PhDs had research to pursue and laboratories that called for attention.
Indeed, in the graduation's keynote address, Paul Berg, PhD, the Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor of Cancer Research, Emeritus, emphasized how they could not rest on their laurels—that keeping up with and advancing scientific knowledge was more than ever a lifetime duty of their professions.
"You will have to cope with a rate of change greater than anything we have experienced before," said Berg, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980. "For it has never been clearer that the future of the life sciences and particularly of medicine lies in the unknown."
Berg urged medical practitioners in particular to continue to pursue research, noting that their patient-based perspective on disease may lead to insights that their colleagues in research labs may not have.
"Current ignorance is vaster than current knowledge," Berg said in closing his remarks. "In some instances, we have learned enough at least to identify important areas of ignorance. Certain of these concern long-standing questions concerning development and differentiation, or the molecular basis of the mind. Others are new questions raised by the very achievements themselves. And of course, we should be wary: some things that we think we know may become less clear in the years to come or even prove to be utterly wrong."
Dean Philip Pizzo, MD, also spoke about the obligations that the graduates must shoulder, most notably the need for them to take an active stand against what he described as a "rising tide of anti-science" and the growing popularity of fundamentalism in the United States and the world.
"It is imperative that you become advocates for the future," Pizzo told the graduates. "At a time when intelligent design and creationism and all the controversy surrounding stem cell research is taking place, it is imperative that science and facts drive the agenda of the day.
"I hope that you will help to lead that effort," he said.
The gravity of the occasion was not lost on the friends and family of those in this year's graduating class, which included 64 MD, 28 master's, 61 PhD and six PhD/MD candidates. Even some of the youngest in attendance seemed to grasp the importance of the event.
Nhan Van Do, who received a master's in bioinformatics, accepted his diploma accompanied by his three children—Patrick, 8, Stephanie, 6, and Andrew, 4.
"It was fun going across the stage, but I was kind of nervous," said Patrick.
Stephanie nodded, "I was so scared I closed my eyes."
Their father, the new graduate, gave them hugs. "You did great," he told them.
Do's own father snapped a picture of his son and his grandchildren and remarked that he wanted to come back soon to see his son get a PhD. "Not for a while, Dad," said Do, an officer in the Army who will be returning to service in Washington, D.C.
In the aftermath of the ceremony, the graduates and their families congregated outside the tent, sipping champagne and eating strawberries in the late afternoon sun. Most had gone through college graduation ceremonies, but this one, they said, was more of a defining moment.
"We all understand that there is something different about society referring to us as 'doctor,'" Al Taira, a member of the graduating class in medicine, said in his speech to classmates. "It will to a large extent define us in our own minds and in the minds of those around us."
That was the thought that Nicole Marsico was contemplating as she flipped open the folder that held her new medical diploma, so that she could show it to her beaming father, Dennis, who had arrived from Pittsburgh the day before. "I had to see her fulfill her dream," he said.
Marsico, who is about to begin a residency in pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, looked at the degree for a moment, with what appeared to be a mix of joy and amazement. "It's a little surreal that it's finished," she said. "It feels good, but I'm nervous about what comes next."
