As she addressed her classmates in the ϲʿֱ Class of 2020, the unprecedented nature of what she was doing was not lost on Kylie Miller.
Her words were being delivered in the middle of a pandemic, one that required each student to gather virtually – apart but together – to mark and celebrate their four-year journey and graduation from WMed.
“I’m so sad that we cannot be together to celebrate but you better believe that only a natural disaster and the magnitude of a global pandemic would be strong enough to keep us from one final, in-person goodbye with all of our friends,” said Miller, who served as class president for the Class of 2020. “But in no way let this diminish the pride and joy that we should feel for graduating today. It turns out that becoming a doctor is a lot of hard work but we’ve earned this.
“Today, we celebrate us.”
Miller’s remarks were delivered during the WMed Class of 2020 Virtual Commencement, which was held on Saturday, May 16, 2020, and shown on . Students and their families gathered from across the country to watch the ceremony and mark the special day.
The unprecedented circumstances that surrounded this year’s commencement ceremony made it an event that filled students and their loved ones, as well as medical school leaders, faculty, residents and staff, with pride. But it was also a day marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and, in that way, tinged with a bit of sadness.
Still, Miller and others who addressed the medical school’s third class of new physicians looked forward and offered reassurance for what lay ahead in residency training and after.
“The truth of the matter is that we’re entering our careers at a time that is seeing the most drastic change in medicine in modern history,” Miller said. “Medicine globally will be forever changed and we have the unique and challenging opportunity of being the very first group of physicians to enter this new age of medicine – educated at the end of an era, ready to train and practice at the beginning of another.”
Dr. Hal B. Jenson, the medical school’s founding dean, said the commencement ceremony for the Class of 2020, as well as graduates of the medical school’s Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences and Master of Science in Medical Engineering degree programs, was a “momentous” day for the students and their families and friends. He congratulated the students for choosing a career in healthcare and committing themselves to caring for patients in need.
“As a newer medical school, each graduating class contributes to building our legacy and a rich tradition of excellence,” Dr. Jenson said. “We look forward to your continued successes throughout your careers … This global pandemic only further shines a light on the need for competent and compassionate physicians, biomedical scientists and medical engineers.
“Among the many endeavors you could have selected as a career, thank you for choosing a profession that will have such a profound impact on individuals, on healthcare institutions, on the communities we serve, and each other,” he added.
During the virtual commencement ceremony, as each medical student’s name was read, a slide with their photo, the name of their honorary hooder and their plans for residency training, was shown. More importantly, they got to hear “Dr.” before each of their names and see the ϲʿֱ credential at the end of their names on each slide.
Dr. Alison S. Clay, assistant dean of Clinical Education and assistant professor in the departments of Surgery and Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, was the keynote speaker for this year’s virtual commencement ceremony.
Dr. Clay, an alumna of Hope College who earned her ϲʿֱ degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, applauded the students and other medical students from their generation for what she said is a true passion for the self-determinants of health and health disparities. She said that focus is of great importance as evidenced by the COVID-19 outbreak and its devastating impact.
“Pandemics widen these disparities,” she said. “We need a group of physicians who are focused on trying to solve the disparities in health care and I look to your generation to help us with that significant problem.”
Having graduated in the middle of the pandemic, Dr. Clay told the students that they have been equipped with a different level of maturity than that of their predecessors and that maturity will serve them well and help them be better prepared as physicians.
“You as a group have had to sit down and reflect on really what it means to be a physician, how it benefits you, but also what the risks are and whether or not your values align with continuing to care for patients at potential risk to yourself and to others,” Dr. Clay said.
While she is a physician herself, Dr. Clay also spoke to the students of her experiences as a patient, of having spent time in a hospital’s intensive care unit and being intubated more than 50 times because of a rare and unique chronic disorder.
It was from that perspective that Dr. Clay implored the students to make sure, as newly minted physicians, that they strive to connect with their patients on a personal level, build trust and acknowledge the totality of each patient’s experience.
“I challenge you to ask your patients each day what can we do to make today better or different than yesterday,” Dr. Clay said. “I’m challenging you to find those nuggets of compassion for your residency. It helps you to find meaning in your work and by finding meaning in your work and improving other people’s lives you will reduce your risk of burnout.
“There is no greater privilege than improving patients’ lives in big and small ways and as a class I know that you’re graduating with challenges that lie ahead that may seem bigger than what others who have gone before you have faced,” she added. “But I ask you to look around and within. You have persistence and grit that have gotten you through this long educational career.”
Indeed, during her remarks to her classmates, Miller awed at their strength and resilience that have served them well in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. As events like an in-person commencement ceremony and Match Day festivities were canceled because of the coronavirus, students in the Class of 2020 stepped forward and found ways to volunteer in the Kalamazoo community.
“The depth of your compassion and dedication to serve our Kalamazoo community will never cease to amaze me,” Miller said. “It’s not during times of peace but instead those of turmoil that the true character of a person reveals itself. This pandemic has demonstrated that WMed made the right decision four years ago.
“You are people with strength and determination,” Miller added. “You have a passion not only for your craft but your community. You have a strength of will that endures during good times and hard ones. You bring joy to each person who is lucky enough to get to know you and I couldn’t be more honored, humbled and proud to call you my classmates and my friends.”