Jada Foreman (CAMED’30), left, listens to the heartbeat of Sarita Som (CAMED’30) after receiving her stethoscope.

Student Activities

9th Annual Lorraine Stanfield, MD, Lecture Emphasizes Humanity in Doctoring

First-year medical students received stethoscopes donated by alumni.

Speakers at the 9^th Annual Lorraine Stanfield, MD, Memorial Doctoring Lecture, who had known and worked with Stanfield who died from breast cancer in 2017 at age 56, spoke about her caring nature. A beloved teacher, mentor and clinician, Stanfield worked for two decades as a primary care physician at Dorchester House Health Center (DotHouse), caring for historically disadvantaged patients. She was the recipient of both the school’s and the University’s highest teaching awards as well as the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award.

First-year medical student Sarita Som found it moving that years after she’d passed, Stanfield’s story still inspired her friends and coworkers to remember her to incoming medical students.

“That speaks volumes for how she showed up in medicine and for her community,” said Som. “The stories they shared about her made me feel like I could bring more of my personality into medicine.”

That was message that alumni guest speaker Ziv Haskal, MD’86, conveyed.

A world-renowned interventional radiologist at the University of Virginia, Haskal received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the medical school’s alumni association in 2025. He has delivered more than 700 lectures, published extensively, received numerous honors and served as editor of two prestigious medical journals.

In his address to medical students, Haskal talked about the value of finding a mentor and about paying attention to your inner voice when selecting a specialty, but mostly he focused on how to relate to patients.

“You are not the king of the castle,” he said. “(Patients) don’t work for us; we work for them.”

Always sit down when you go into a room. Treating patients as human beings by conveying that you too are human fundamentally changes the patient/doctor relationship for the better.

Ziv Haskal, MD

Haskal relayed advice given to him by his mentor, the late John “Jack” O’Connor, MD’57.

“Always sit down when you go into a room,” Haskal recalled him saying. Treating patients as human beings by conveying that you too are human fundamentally changes the patient/doctor relationship for the better, he observed. 

“The pleasure lies in the relationship with that patient; it can be brief, or it can be longstanding and recurring over time, and with their family as well. They will thank you for your care. But remember to thank them, for the privilege of allowing you to be part of their care,” he added.

Lorraine Stanfield Scholarship recipient Angelee Verdieu, MPH’22, a second-year medical student, spoke to students about her experience working at DotHouse this summer.

I have found that my favorite aspect of medicine lives in the reminder that patients are whole people, and our goal as future physicians is to understand how social, structural and behavioral factors shape their medical realities.

Angelee Verdieu

“Being present for full days of patient sessions made me appreciate how often the best plan of care is not determined by diagnosis alone, but by whether that plan fits into a patient’s life – their primary language, finances, access to transportation and resources, and social support,” she said. “I have found that my favorite aspect of medicine lives in the reminder that patients are whole people, and our goal as future physicians is to understand how social, structural and behavioral factors shape their medical realities.”

Verdieu’s mother is a nurse practitioner at Codman Square Health Center, also located in Dorchester.

“I grew up witnessing the impacts of building a trusting relationship with patients over time,” she said. “That shaped my career interest early and I knew that I wanted to work in primary care.”

At the Aug. 24 lecture held in Hiebert Lounge, 138 medical students received stethoscopes and other medical instruments including the patella hammer, tuning forks, ophthalmoscope and otoscope. Since 2007, alumni have donated more than 2,500 stethoscopes to students.

First-year medical student Meredith Braddy is considering a career as an obstetrician-gynecologist, and she ordered a pink stethoscope.

This is a big moment for me. I’m the first person in my family to pursue becoming a doctor. (The stethoscope) is a symbol of the responsibility and the honor of taking care of patients.

Meredith Braddy

“This is a big moment for me. I’m the first person in my family to pursue becoming a doctor,” Braddy said. “(The stethoscope) is a symbol of the responsibility and the honor of taking care of patients.”

Working five years as a volunteer emergency medical technician, from his last year of high school through four years of undergraduate study at Case Western Reserve University, first-year medical student Isaac Alexander grew accustomed to using stethoscopes but had never owned one.

“It feels surreal,” Alexander said. “It’s very nice to be gifted one that I hope to keep and use for the rest of my life.”

For Alexander, service to community is hardwired. An Eagle Scout, he also volunteered for a year at a maternity home in Cleveland as an undergraduate student.

“Working with a vulnerable population definitely instilled in me the need for the support and encouragement I hope to give to my future patients,” he said.

Som said receiving the medical instruments further emphasized what she was feeling at the White Coat Ceremony, when she first put on that symbol of the medical profession.

“It’s all starting now. These are our first steps,” she said.