commencement

Clockwise from left: Dean Thomas J. Lawley with graduate Rachel Dement, assisted by Dr. Whit Sewell; Graduate Telly Meadows (center) with Assistant Dean Kate Heilpern and Associate Dean Robert Lee; Graduate Brooke Slaton gets a hug from her mother; Graduate Christine Law with her parents, Stephen, 76M, and Jane Law; MD/PhD graduates Joel Trambley, Kelly Skelton, Bret Friday, Rajagopal Srinivasan, and Patrick Campbell; Jonas Shulman, executive associate dean for medical education and student affairs, received this year’s Evangeline Papageorge Teaching Award, presented by Peggy Duke, 77M, president of the Medical Alumni Association.

COMMENCEMENT
2002 Diploma Ceremony

At this year’s graduation ceremony, 103 students received their MDs, including 10 dual-degree recipients (5 MD/PhDs and 5 MD/MPHs). Dr. Judith Swain, Bloomfield Professor and Chair of Medicine at Stanford, gave the commencement address, urging the new doctors, in the words of hockey player Wayne Gretsky, to always keep looking ahead, to where the puck is going to be, and to never look back.

Student speaker David Altman wore a cast on his left hand decorated with a puppet wearing a mortarboard, a result of his recent too close encounter with a knife blade when he was cutting an apple. He told the class that his recent stint as a patient, in pain and unable even to dress without assistance, was the most valuable medical education he had received. “Never forget you’re treating people,” he said, “because that’s what makes our profession sacred.”

The students voted Dr. John Louis-Ugbo (Cell Biology) as their honorary class member. Medical Alumni Association President and anesthesiology faculty member Peggy Duke, 77M, named Dr. Jonas Shulman (executive associate dean for medical education and student affairs) as recipient of the Evangeline T. Papageorge Alumni Teaching Award (the second time he has received this honor). (BACK TO TOP)