At Baylor College of Medicine’s spring commencement, speaker Dr. Sally Kornbluth wanted the new doctors to take away a central message, words she found much later in her medical career:
“The happiest people I know are the ones who found important work, where they could use their skills in service to others; who pushed themselves to do it very, very well; and who never forgot the value of their friends and family.”
Now president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kornbluth spoke of her career ascent from cell biologist to Duke University’s provost. She is known for her advocacy of faculty excellence and student wellbeing. She received an honorary Doctor of Letters in Medicine degree.
Kornbluth has found that being present as a physician, educator and person was paramount; multitasking is an illusion. She illustrated this by recounting a long-ago memory where her daughter called her out for being distracted during conversations.
“All of us who have too many things to do somehow convince ourselves that we can do everything all at once, and that it saves us time,” she said. “We have to stop kidding ourselves that our brains can do two things effectively at once… ‘Monotasking’ is what we’re wired for, and it pays off right away in productivity and satisfaction.”
More than 250 students graduated from Baylor’s School of Medicine (191), Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (80) and School of Health Professions’ Genetic Counseling Program (9) at Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land on May 27.
It’s the first year the ceremony has been held at the venue, which was filled with students’ friends and family, as well as Baylor’s invited guests and honorary degree recipients.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, senior fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, received an honorary Doctor of Letters in Medicine degree. Charles Hall, senior tax practitioner at Norton Rose Fulbright and board member of the M.D. Anderson Foundation, received an honorary Doctor of Humanities in Medicine degree.
Dr. Rachel Curry, class president of the Graduate School, started her recorded speech with a passage from the 1997 Apple Think Different ad campaign, making the connection between scientists and the “round pegs in the square holes… who see things differently”
“The choice to pursue a career in science is both moral and necessary. We dedicate our professional lives to the pursuit of science, be it for the sake of truth or the hope to improve the human condition. We do this by pursuing novel observations in our research, by following the data regardless of the rules they defy and by challenging the scientific status quo. We do this by being courageous,” Curry said. “And despite our differences as humans, we are united in our quest for understanding and desire to contribute to the collective human knowledge. We, as scientists, invent, imagine, heal, explore, create and inspire. We push the human race forward.”
Dr. Adel Hassan, class president of the School of Medicine, and Julia Volpi, class president of the Genetic Counseling Program, also delivered speeches via recorded videos to the audience of families and friends.
Dr. Paul Klotman, president, CEO and executive dean of Baylor, did not mince words in his short address. Klotman said there is a global undercurrent of anti-science, and the newly graduated doctors are entering the profession of medicine in a time of change.
“Through advocacy, sound science, medicine and facts… we’re counting on you to represent Baylor in all you do,” Klotman said.
By Julie Garcia
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