Dean's Newsletter

Archive of previous newsletters

Commencement 2006: Student and Faculty Speakers

June 1, 2006

This newsletter is part 2 of our effort to present Commencement addresses. Each year, the graduating class elects a fellow graduate to speak at Commencement, as well as a faculty speaker. This year, the elected student speaker was Jeffrey Zampi (now with an MD after his name), who will be doing a residency in Pediatrics at The Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The faculty speaker was David Lambert, Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education. Here's what they said:

 

 

Student Commencement Speaker
Jeffrey Zampi, MD

"When I grow up..."

Jeffrey Zampi, MD

When I grow up I want to be a pediatric cardiologist. That's what I've been telling people since I was about 10 years old. When we had to do health projects in junior high, other kids talked about smoking or drugs; I brought in balloon catheters used to open congenitally small heart valves.

In fact, a funny thing happened to me about 3 months ago to prove my point. I received a letter from Mrs. Gilbert, who is the mother of Elissa Gilbert, one of my fellow classmates. In this letter there was a photocopy of an old article from the Helping Hearts newsletter from the Spring of 1992. For those of you who don't know, Helping Hearts is an organization at Strong Memorial Hospital here in Rochester for parents and kids affected by heart disease. Apparently, while in sixth grade, I had entered a writing contest. Here was my entry:

When I Grow Up, by Jeff Zampi

When I grow up I am going to be a doctor. I am going to be the best doctor that ever lived. I am going to set all sorts of medical records

Here s how I will go about achieving my dream. First I will go through college like a breeze. Then I will find myself a girl and get married. Next I will go to the afterlife they call medical school. I don't know which one yet, but it will be a good one. After I finish med school, I will become a heart doctor (cardiologist) for my whole life, give or take a couple years. I will help every person with a heart problem and show them that having a heart problem isn't so bad, you just have to get used to it, I should know -- I have one.

If I can't make it in the big world of medical science, I'll become a big leaguer in the baseball field of science. That's what I'm going to be when I grow up. I might even write a couple of comic books or novels for fun.

Pretty lofty goals for a kid who had, in all likelihood, the worst case of undiagnosed and untreated ADHD in the history of medicine. 14 years have elapsed since I wrote that letter but I guess for the most part I stuck to my plan. I did "find myself a girl and get married", which has probably been the single most significant accomplishment I have made in my life. I did get through college and today I stand before you about to graduate from the "afterlife they call medical school." I have not written any novels or comic books…yet.

The point is this: we all have dreams and aspirations. Everyone had a "when I grow up I want to be" scenario picked out. Now that I am going into pediatrics, one of my favorite questions to ask my patients is what they want to be when they grow up because some of the answers I get are memorable, to say the least. For example, my niece Hannah used to want to be a doctor but now she wants to drive a school bus. My nephew Sam wants to make the Slurpee's at 7-11. He is not here today so I know I won't be the one to break the news that the Slurpee machines are self-serve.

Whatever our dreams are, some of us are lucky enough to achieve those dreams. Today I stand on of nearly 100 of us who are literally having one of their dreams come true before your very eyes. Not all of us started with the same dreams and I'm sure our dreams differ, but it is an incredible feat that we all are here today. Four years ago we put those white coats on for the first time and now we can trade them in for a newer and slightly longer model. What I once referred to as the "after-life", I now know as the place where we all spent a lot of time and sweat learning what it really means to be a doctor; what it means to take care of another human being. And in the process of learning this craft, we all pick up little things along the way. For example, in nutrition, I learned caffeine is a food group no matter what the FDA says. In grammar, I learned that when an attending physician asks you a question, answering with a strong statement like "it is the spleen", and not "is it the spleen?" is always best. And in surgery I learned, you don't mess with the pancreas. Yes, these are the intangibles that we all picked up along the way.

I would like to point out that none of these dreams would have possible without the people sitting out there in the shadows; the parents, the siblings, the mentors, the significant others. Without your support and guidance none of us would have been able to be the people we are today. I'd also like to specifically thank all the doctors who we have learned from over the past 4 years. You set the benchmark high enough so that we knew we had our work cut out for us but we were always able to see how good it could be if we got there.

Some one once told me that every speech should end with a "take-home message", something that will keep the people thinking about what you have just said. Personally, I am not much of a reader so I cannot impress you with a literary quote. So instead I'd like to quote one of the great philosophers of my generation, Ferris Bueller. Mr Bueller once wisely said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." After today, we as physicians have been given the responsibility of caring for our fellow man. In the future madness that will surely ensue, whether it be in a residency program, research, or wherever it is that our dreams will take us, don't forget to stop and look around from time to time because with the responsibility comes the honor and privilege of getting to know people and their families more intimately than anyone else. As you run from patient to patient, take time to absorb the spoils of your chosen career. Don't forget the feeling the first time you saw a patient and were able to introduce yourself as doctor. Remember the first time you saw a baby being born and the first time you watched someone's life come to an end. And all the while, be proud that you have made it. You have become what you wanted to be when you grew up.

Faculty Commencement Speaker
David Lambert, MD

David Lambert, M.D. Associate Dean for Medical Student Education

I would like to welcome family, friends and distinguished guests to the Commencement of the Medical School Class of 2006. I want to thank the class for the honor of asking me to speak to you today for, as you all know, I began my current position the same year the majority of you began here.

As today approached, I could not help but wonder, how does a guy from a small French-Canadian town in northern New Hampshire, come to be the faculty speaker at a medical school commencement--hey, you never know.

I then pondered, "What am I going to say?" Although commencement is a time to look forward, I reflected back. I turned to my own previous graduation ceremonies and I initially remembered very little except that I smiled a lot and my face hurt by the end of the day. No profound words of wisdom came from that initial reflection.

As I thought back further and tried to remember, I realize that remembering is a lot of what we do (or at times, try to do), not only as physicians, but simply as humans. Memory starts when we are very young. A newborn baby, when confronted with two voices, one being its mother, will preferentially turn to its mother. The comfort in familiarity is remembered early in life.

As we grow and develop, our memory increases exponentially. We learn from our parents or guardians. As a parent, I encourage my children to remember many things quite often. Remember to wash your hands, say please, say thank you, don't push your sister, don't hit your brother and the list goes on. As other parents in the audience can attest, building your child's memory comes with varying success. Some of the proud parents today may be thinking back and remembering, she couldn't put her dirty clothes in a hamper, but now she's a doctor or I never thought he'd be toilet trained and now look at him--you never know.

We learn also from experience, if you touch something, the consequences are obvious you get burned and this is remembered. Experiences as we grow up furnish us with much to remember. And of course, formal education teaches us a great deal we remember--from numbers and letters to reading and mathematics. Like knowledge sponges, we retain much of what we learn.

We recall things from our surroundings through ads and slogans. Society asks us to remember the past with slogans such as "Remember the Maine", "Remember the Great Depression". Anyone who has traveled to Quebec, Canada, has seen the license plate of Quebec. My French-Canadian heritage would not have me miss the motto on this license plate which is "Je me souviens" which means "I myself remember". While this motto alludes to remember when Canada was ruled by the French and is politically charged, the motto has yet another meaning which is to remember one's self. Who you are and where you come from, your heritage, your culture, your beliefs. These unique aspects form one's individuality and shape the "center" of who you are. It is what makes you--YOU.

Life supplies our memories with so much in so many ways; it is from these experiences, these learnings, this sense of who we are that we ponder decisions, make choices and complete actions in conducting our lives. And you, like myself and many others here, decided to become a physician.

That decision came at many different points in life for each of us, either before college, during college or sometime later. That decision resulted from different external circumstances. Maybe we had a religious experience, were hit by a car,
had some other personal encounter, perhaps watched too many daytime soap operas or episodes of E.R.; but whatever it was, we made a conscious decision to pursue a career in medicine. While the precise circumstances and nuances that led to this decision are as unique as we all are, the important thing is that it happened. We had a goal we set out to achieve--to become a physician--and today, you have reached that goal. Whatever the fine distinctions of our motivation, there is a commonality in being physicians and that is that we want to help other people. To become a physician and help people, you had to remember many different facts. Anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pharmacology (yes, we did teach you that), physiology, pediatrics, medicine, surgery, ob/gyn, neurology--the list goes on. You remembered non-factual information about human nature as well. All of this information was a necessary part to become a physician.

As your medical career progresses, you will be required to remember more and more information. Some of what you do will not require consciously trying to remember things. For example, as a child, you needed to concentrate when you first learned the alphabet, now you can say the alphabet like a reflex without much conscious effort. At least I hope you can. You have seen some of this change from conscious effort to near reflex in your training as a medical student; for example, the placement of a stethoscope when listening to the lungs is something you have done so many times that your hand automatically moves across the patient's back as your attention is on what you are hearing. You will also remember by continually using your knowledge or practicing a skill. Medicine will work in that way, have no fear.

Whether a physician or other vocation, we know we can't remember everything. As you practice the art of medicine, there will be times that you won't remember certain factual information, but you will know there are resources to allow you to find the answer and learn or re-learn the information. Because we can't remember everything, we use these references to jog our memory. Can't remember the meaning of a word--look it up; drug dose, innervation of a muscle--get the information--seek the answer.

Some things we forget are harder to look up, for there are no standard references to jog our memories. It is the other aspects of your life, your uniqueness or center that also need to be practiced in order to be remembered. Parts of your center are your interests, your hobbies, your convictions and beliefs. You are all very talented outside of medicine with skills in music, theater, research, athletics, language, and more. I ask you to continue to foster, nurture and remember them as you practice your profession. They are not separate from being a physician, but an integral part of it, for they make you a person. I have no specific suggestion for you, but I suggest you engage the help of family and friends. To maintain this balance between your profession and your personal life will be a challenge, but like other challenges you have faced, certainly not an insurmountable one.

While we all have confidence that you will remember much from medical school, I ask that you remember what it was like to be a medical student. You will be teaching, supervising and mentoring students very soon. Never forget when you were a bit tentative or uncertain and the relief a kind and guiding word or hand provided. Remember the pride of having done a good job and reward those performances when you see them and develop with kindness the necessary skills in others if you don't see them. Remember also the special patients who impacted you in some way and whom you touched and made a difference.

I am reminded of a story a colleague told me about a student who worked with an adolescent girl who had cancer. He maintained contact and served as an emotional resource for the family during the girl's illness. The girl unfortunately succumbed to her cancer and the student sent a letter of condolence to the family. A short time later, the student received a note in the mail with a small package. The note, from the child's mother, thanked the student for all he did and in the package was the birthstone from the girl's ring. The mother asked that whenever he questioned his decision to become a physician, he should take out the stone and remember.

So today, I have no precious jewel for you, only words and these words are your own. I ask you when you move and unpack, find your personal statements from medical school and from residency applications and put them in an envelope, store them with your important papers. They are as important as any other paper, perhaps more so because they are part of your center--they are you, the person, the medical student, the physician. May 19th is your anniversary of becoming a physician and each year, take these words out, these words that are your own--and read them. Read them when you feel challenged, they will help you to remember why you went into medicine and the power you have to touch people's lives in a positive, meaningful way. Your career will continue to be challenging in many ways, but it will be mentally, emotionally and spiritually rewarding.

It is from this long prelude that I come to summarize my message and it is simple and brief. I ask you to recall and maintain your center, what makes you unique, your interests and hobbies, your family, your beliefs--what makes you yourself. "Vous vous souviennez"--You remember yourself. I ask you to remember the joys of becoming a physician that you experienced as a medical student. Teach others, share and foster that joy in your residency and beyond. For medicine is a rewarding and fun profession. I ask you also to always remember why you went into medicine and the impact you can have on others as a physician. Cherish all of these memories. If you can remember these three things, who you are, what it was like to be a medical student and why you became a physician, then your memory will serve you right and you can do no wrong.

I am honored to have been part of your medical education, honored to speak to you today, and most of all, I am honored to call you my fellow physicians.

In closing, I join Dr. Lambert in his last sentiment. I hope you have been able to take advantage of our beautiful Spring this year, and early summer.

Meliora,

David S. Guzick, MD, PhD
Dean, School of Medicine and Dentistry