Medical School celebrates Commencement 2008

By Darla Brown

One-hundred and ninety-one students made the transition to physician as they walked across the George R. Brown Convention Center stage Saturday, May 31.

Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo handed out the student awards to Jennifer Cowart, who received the Walter G. Sterling Award for Excellence, and to David Stewart, who received both the Truman G. Blocker, Jr., Gold-Headed Cane Award and the Hitoshi C. Nikaidoh, M.D. Award for Humanism in Medicine.

Faculty awardees, Han Zhang, Ph.D; Eugene Toy, M.D.; Pedro Mancias, M.D.; Cheves Smythe, M.D.; and Octavio Pinell, M.D., also were recognized.

Class President David Nolan told the audience that he had spent some of the best times of his life over the last four years.

“We have come together as more than colleagues, we’re friends. It’s so rewarding to know that I’m not doing this alone but with a great group of people,” he said. “I want to thank our faculty. You have taken a bunch of crazy college students and turned us into doctors, and that is no small task.”

James “Red” Duke, M.D., John B. Holmes Professor of Clinical Science, said he was honored to be the commencement speaker. “But, it’s a risk on the person who asked you to speak,” he added.

“When you walk out of this hall, your life is going to change big time,” he told the graduates. “You’re like monarch butterflies.”

Dr. Duke walked through the changes of medicine as he had experienced them – from his birth, when he was given to the wrong mother at the hospital in Ennis, Texas. “We didn’t have wristbands back then,” he said.

Joining the Medical School faculty in 1972, he also recalled the earliest days of the Medical School. “We didn’t have offices, just closets in the library,” he said.

He encouraged the soon-to-be graduates to develop human doctor-patient relationships. “You must engage your patient. There is nothing more valuable than your integrity, warmth, and understanding,” he said.