{"id":6694,"date":"2012-05-21T11:40:48","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T15:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/busm-news\/?p=2360"},"modified":"2012-05-21T11:40:48","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T15:40:48","slug":"238-degrees-conferred-at-busms-165th-commencement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2012\/05\/21\/238-degrees-conferred-at-busms-165th-commencement\/","title":{"rendered":"238 Degrees Conferred at BUSM\u2019s 165th Commencement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/08\/busm-commencement-2012.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2361\" title=\"busm commencement 2012\" src=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/08\/busm-commencement-2012-340x300.jpg\" alt=\"busm commencement 2012\" width=\"340\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>As a sea of red robes envelopes the Boston University Charles River Campus during commencement weekend, the MD and PhD graduates of the School of Medicine and its Division of Graduate Medical Sciences stand out with their dark  green and deep blue lapels and hoods that signify their course of study. For the 238 graduates of the Class of 2012, the academic road has led them to this day of recognition for their achievement as doctors of medicine and doctors of philosophy.<\/p>\n<p>One hundred sixty-six members of the class received the MD, 10 the MD-PhD, four the MD-MBA, three MD-MPH and 55 received the PhD. Latin honors were conferred on 34 members of the class.<\/p>\n<p>BUSM Dean Karen Antman, MD, welcomed the graduates, their families and friends after a rousing performance of the National Anthem by graduating medical student Mary Alice Vijjeswarapu.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommencement is really only the end of the beginning of your education,\u201d Dean Antman told the Class of 2012. \u201cWe hope you have acquired the most important tool of all&#8211;the capacity for continued, disciplined inquiry, lifelong learning. You are about to embark as a resident or post doc on what will be your steepest learning curve yet. Congratulations on reaching this major milestone in your professional life&#8211; the end of the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in Latin for what now has become her commencement tradition, Associate Provost for Graduate Medical Sciences Linda Hyman, PhD, told the graduates, <em>per aspera ad astra<\/em>:  through hardship to the stars. \u201cI chose this phrase because I think it is important to recognize the road you\u2019ve traveled was likely long and difficult,\u201d said Hyman. \u201cAnd, yes, as we all know it is all about the journey \u2013 but now \u2013 stars here you come! I know it wasn\u2019t easy and that you almost certainly experienced hardships along the way. Perhaps experiments that didn\u2019t work, a test you knew you could have done better on, yet here you are and you most definitely have made it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/05\/image-1-commencement-large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2363\" title=\"image 1 commencement large\" src=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/05\/image-1-commencement-large-361x300.jpg\" alt=\"image 1 commencement large\" width=\"361\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>The faculty awards conferred at commencement included Educator of the Year Awards to Adam B. Hall, MSc., instructor of anatomy and neurobiology, for Graduate Sciences;  Megan T. Sandel, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics and environmental health, for Preclinical Sciences; and Edward B. Feinberg, MD, professor of ophthalmology, for Clinical Sciences.  The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award was presented to Heidi P. Auerbach, MD, assistant professor of medicine, and Brian Penti, MD \u201904, assistant professor of family medicine.  The School\u2019s highest teaching award, the Stanley L. Robbins Award for Excellence in Teaching, was presented to Anna DePold Hohler, MD, \u201998 associate professor of neurology.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on behalf of the graduate students, Johann Sebastian Bergholz Villafane said, \u201cWhether it is in industry or academia, policy or education, we came to this particular school, to BU, because we wanted to make a difference, and we have already begun.  As we teach those classes, publish our articles, discover new medicines, and treat our patients, we become part of the international scientific community, and it will be up to us to give this community direction and purpose.\u201d Villafane received his doctorate in biochemistry and accepted a position as a research assistant professor at Sichuan University, in Chengdu, China.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/05\/image-2-commencement-large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2364\" title=\"image 2 commencement large\" src=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/05\/image-2-commencement-large-450x300.jpg\" alt=\"image 2 commencement large\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>Aniruddha (Anu) Hazra, chosen by his medical school classmates to speak, pondered several major events during his BUSM education.  \u201cRecently, I found myself thinking about our induction into medicine out on Talbot Green that August afternoon,\u201d he recalled. \u201cWhen I compare that Anu in his crisp white coat, to the Anu standing today in overly priced rented regalia, the differences are staggering. On the outside, I have much less hair, gained a little weight, and perpetually look tired.  But more importantly, on the inside up here, and I speak for all of us, we have consumed, digested, and applied more knowledge and skills than we could ever imagine. On Match day I made the analogy of our match to finding \u2018the one.\u2019  If that Friday in March was our engagement, this is the wedding.  It is a culmination of years of dedication and diligence.\u201d Hazra will be starting an internal medicine residency in Chicago at the Rush University Medical Center.<\/p>\n<p>Commencement speaker Charles Clements, MD, MPH, executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, shared the human rights activist three-word code: dignity, witness, and hope.  \u201cDignity is at the core of all human rights,\u201d he said. \u201cDignity should be at the core of every interaction you have with patients as a physician. Witness can come in many forms. It can mean standing up for patients who have no voice of their own. Hope is the very foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Right. I cannot think of a single domain during my lifetime in which there hasn\u2019t been some improvement. You began this journey with hope and I\u2019m sure you can think back to someone who spilled a little hope on you along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ceremony concluded with a reciting of the Hippocratic Oath by the MD graduates and, for the first time at the BUSM commencement, the Oath of the Scientist by the PhD graduates. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/media\/set\/?set=a.449624148400662.119970.149595361736877&amp;type=1\" target=\"_blank\">Photos<\/a> are available on Facebook and a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/buniverse\/view\/?v=bzObd12B\" target=\"_blank\">video<\/a> is available on BUniverse .<\/p>\n<p>Submitted by Mary Hopkins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>s a sea of red robes envelopes the Boston University Charles River Campus during commencement weekend, the MD and PhD graduates of the School of Medicine and its Division of Graduate Medical Sciences stand out with their dark green and deep blue lapels and hoods that signify their course of study. For the 238 graduates of the Class of 2012, the academic road has led them to this day of recognition for their achievement as doctors of medicine and doctors of philosophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}