(bright music)
>> Afternoon, everyone.
I'm delighted to be here with you today
to celebrate the graduation of the class of 2021.
Today for many things,
a day to celebrate the incredible accomplishments
that our students have made be they in the laboratory,
on the wards, in the clinic rooms
or in our operating rooms of our hospital,
but also in the larger community
where they've served vulnerable populations
through their generosity and passion.
It's also a day for thanks,
thanks to the people that have supported you along the way,
your family, friends, past teachers,
and present faculty and mentors.
But it's also a chance for us as faculty to thank you.
One for entrusting us with your medical education,
and two for assisting us in the discovery
of new knowledge and in the provision of outstanding
and just as importantly, compassionate care to our patients.
It's also a time for reflection.
You were beginning your careers in medicine
as I am ending mine in the next couple of days.
I hope that you will find the same depth
of joy and fulfillment that I always have in medicine.
It's also important to reflect
on what a commitment to medicine means.
When you are in the role of a physician
as the care provider,
you have to be 100% there,
but you can't be in that role 100% of the time.
In order to care
for your patients in the way that they deserve
and you want to,
you have to commit to taking care of yourself,
those you love, and your fellow colleagues in medicine.
It's been an honor to witness what you've achieved here
and I wish you the very best in the future.
A future I'm confident holds even greater things
in the years to come.
It's wonderful to welcome you as colleagues.
Thank you very much.
And now it gives me great pleasure to introduce
the medical student speaker today, Neel Koyawala.
Neel.
>> Hey, med 21.
We're here, we did it,
and what a journey it has been.
Thank you so much for allowing me
to be a part of your special graduation day.
It doesn't feel like long ago
we were at our first day of orientation
in Turner Auditorium
and Dean (indistinct) asked us, "Any questions?
This is your chance to forever be known
as the first person to ask a question
in your medical school class."
Afterwards, one student's hand immediately shot up,
"Oh, I just want it to be known," he said,
and so our class group me was named med 21,
I just want to be known.
We were known for our rigorous dissections in anatomy,
our ability to ace multiple choice tests,
and our courage during our elevator party.
We were known for our musical talent
during our second look weekend video,
our colleges Olympics performances,
and many amazing Kathy and the Brewery concerts.
We were known for our commitment to cutting edge research
and our persistence to become less awkward
in our clinical foundations of medicine course.
And then we entered clerkships
and learn what it was like not to be known.
We quickly realized that this environment is not about us
but instead about the privilege of getting to help people
and families on some of the worst days of their lives.
Today, as we receive our MDs,
we have the opportunity to not only reflect
on what it means to be doctors in the hospital
but also ask what does it mean to be humans
in the hospitals and doctors outside the hospital?
As I reflect, I remember a quote
from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that goes,
"The single story creates stereotypes.
And the problem with stereotypes
is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.
They make one story, become the only story."
Take our rotations for example,
it's like if we said a surgery rotation
is about eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
when you're lucky and standing for eight hours
as you eagerly retract
and gear up for another 4:00 a.m start.
Or that women's health
is about getting those shoe covers on fast enough
and gracefully holding out your hands in time
to catch the football that is a human baby.
Or that pediatrics is about the miracle
of performing an ear exam
with a squirming and screaming two-year-old child
in a parent's lap.
Or I should be careful here, some may say
internal medicine is about standing on rounds for six hours
while at the seventh hour
a faculty member walking by spots a fascinating EKG
and pulls out their calipers for group discussion,
and the list goes on.
But fortunately, as a class
we all have had 120 different stories of medical school
that can only begin to capture what an adventure
and privilege it is to be a medical student.
Going forward through our actions,
we will have the opportunity
to contribute to the stories that help define
what it means to be a doctor.
Being human inside the hospital means
we don't become desensitized to human suffering.
It means we open up our hearts and minds
to fully listen to someone
in their moments of vulnerability
before contextualizing that information
to the years of knowledge and training we have received.
It means we don't let one story of COPD exacerbation
or one opioid overdose define all of our future encounters.
We are in a unique position in our training
to feel uncomfortable by some of the norms in the hospital.
In these moments, it is critical
we resist the temptation to immediately conform
and instead reflect on why we are feeling uncomfortable.
And whether it's because we are going against
the much longer lived experience of being a human
before we entered the field of medicine.
With our compassionate listening,
we have the opportunity to start breaking the pattern
of discrimination and judgment in the hospital
that many patients face in all sectors of their lives.
And not all of our influences doctors
will come from our advanced medical knowledge.
When we leave the hospital, we are doctors in our community.
This could simply mean being a point person for advice
on health in your family.
It could also mean translating the stories
patients share with us into systemic advocacy
for broader improvements in our community's health.
During the COVID pandemic
we have seen how some communities have suffered
much more than others in the United States
and how the distribution of oxygen and ventilators
have varied so much globally.
With the growing number of tragedies around us,
like racial injustice, disparities
and access to care and gun violence
and the intersection of health
and wellbeing with these tragedies,
it is so important for us to extend our empathy, healing,
and advocacy beyond the hospital walls.
And after training in a pandemic,
I could not think of a more equipped
and thoughtful class to do this.
So to our villages,
I would like to express on behalf of our class
our sincerest gratitude to everyone who has invested in us
to become better humans and better doctors
both inside and outside of the healthcare setting
including our wonderful faculty, parents, family,
friends and patients.
I will forever treasure our shared experience
as a member of the Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine class of 2021.
I am so proud and excited for all of our stories
that will soon help refine what it means to be a physician.
I hope we will be known for our compassion first.
Congrats again, med 21.
>> Hello, each year it is my privilege
to address our graduating masters and PhD students.
Today, we celebrate a collection of scholars
from a wide range of scientific fields,
medical historians who research past pandemics,
cell biologists working to cure cancer,
and engineers who create medical devices.
Despite this variety
all students will recite the graduate student oath
in which they pledged to uphold
a number of important commitments
and practices during their career.
I would like to draw the students's attention
to one in particular.
"You will pledge to be an ambassador of science
to the public and strive to be honest, respectful
and unbiased when engaging the public."
Indeed during the past year
each of you has likely served in this capacity
as your family and friends as source for medical
and vaccine information.
I draw your attention to this specific pledge today
because in times like these
we are acutely aware of the importance of science
and the public shared understanding of scientific truth.
My charge to you our graduating students
is to embrace your responsibility
to educate the public throughout your career.
To close, I simply wanna say thank you to our students.
Thank you for all that you've done while at Hopkins
but more than that, thank you for all that you will do
for science, medical discovery, and society going forward.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to be your colleague
during your time at Hopkins
and we will stay connected in the future.
On behalf of your teachers, mentors, family, and friends,
we celebrate you
and are proud of all that you've accomplished.
From all of us
congratulations to the graduating class of 2021.
Each year, the graduating masters and PhD students
select a speaker to represent them at convocation.
It is now my pleasure to introduce
this year's graduate student speaker Monika Loony.
Monika joined our pathobiology PhD program in 2016
after receiving degrees in psychology and microbiology
from the University of Maryland.
She conducted her thesis research
with Dr. Petros Karakousis
where she investigated the regulation of small RNs
in infections by mycobacterium tuberculosis,
and SARS-CoV-2.
Outside of the lab
Monika volunteers for the (indistinct)
and frequently travel to Kenya
to assist them with coordinating free medical camps
for children affected by HIV.
After graduation,
Monika will begin a postdoctoral fellowship
at the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research,
where she will continue her work on TB and SARS-CoV-2
while also transitioning
into a master's of Public Health program
at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
I'm pleased to present Monika Looney.
>> Fellow graduates, we come to this,
the end of a brilliant journey,
a journey undoubtedly unique for each of us
and one that bonds us all through the shared experience
of the highest highs and the lowest lows
that have accompanied us along our way.
But today we arrive together victorious,
with the collective pride that shouts we did it.
We have made it to the end,
and it is an end that will serve as a foundation
for infinite new beginnings.
Completion of a graduate degree is an immense challenge.
Surely when we entered our programs
we all must have anticipated
that we would have been faced with obstacles
that would test our resilience and our resolve.
But I would guess that not one of us foresaw the countless
unimaginable and profound circumstances
hurled upon us last year at the beginning of 2020.
We have faced severe isolation, loss,
and complete disruption of routine.
And we have felt that heavy burden
and yet each and every graduate here today
was able to adapt, endure,
and emerge a 2020 tested champion of science and of life.
If this last year and a half has taught us anything
it is that every one of us has a role to play
in the fight for a better world,
with less disease and less suffering.
This historic time has shown light
on the deep seated injustice that stands in the way,
has reminded us that privilege can mean the difference
between life and death
and that it is in our hands to create a more equitable,
more just world.
If this experience has taught us anything
it is that science, medicine,
and public health are essential,
and that change and progress come
only when we work together.
Each of us is one of many
who drive forward the solutions that save lives
and change history.
We cannot do it alone.
Amongst us today,
there may be future professors, healthcare providers,
CEOs, Nobel laureates, writers, politicians,
and some who may choose to leave science
for something else entirely.
But as we prepare for our next steps,
I think it's worth saying to my peers,
who might have watched with admiration
as they worked towards this day,
what you've done here mattered.
Whatever you go on to do next will matter too.
What you have accomplished is no easy feat.
Everything in our paths we have overcome.
Countless hours of studying,
late nights toiling away in the lab or reading articles
and case reports,
failed experiment upon failed experiment
upon failed experiment,
and in spite of it all we persevered
and hopefully found at least a few moments
to appreciate the victories.
Like the first moment you realize you finally have data,
the first official publication
of your graduate school career,
completion of exams and the realization
that you will never have to take another class final again
unless you choose to,
a successful thesis defense even a virtual one,
and yes, mastering the art of being professionally dressed
only from the waist up
while maintaining optimal sweat pant clad comfort
on the lower half for the 100 Zoom meeting
attended from your bedroom.
And of course, graduation day.
When the work is done
and the only thing left to do is enjoy,
feel proud of all the things you have accomplished
during your time at Hopkins
and look forward to embarking on the beginning
of the rest of our lives,
wherever they may take us.
So we come to this, the end and the beginning
perhaps bruised, but never broken,
perhaps exhausted but ready for the next adventure
certainly challenged, but triumphant.
We, the 2021 graduates of the Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine are without question
a force to be reckoned with
because not even a global pandemic could stop us.
Now let's go show the world why.
Congratulations to you all.