The Florida State University School of Medicine graduated from its largest class on Saturday as 125 new doctors made it through the stage at the Ruby Diamond Concert Hall. Additionally, he has 12 MSc students graduating from the Biomedical Sciences/Bridging to Clinical Medicine program and has been accepted into her MD class of 2027.
“What a wonderful day to be a doctor!” Interim Dean Alma Littles said in her opening remarks.
Littles reminded the plenary that while medical school can be challenging even under the most ideal circumstances, “there is a reason why not everyone can become a doctor.” He said he will have to climb an unheard-of mountain for the 2023 MD class.
“Because of the global pandemic, being sent home during the second semester of medical school to take classes online and spending two years of training in a virtual learning environment magnifies the challenges exponentially.
“And yet we are here,” Littles said.
Class president Gabriela Serres, who is on her way to train in general surgery at the University of California, Davis, also spoke about the impact COVID-19 has had on her class.
“As the impact of COVID-19 became clearer and more severe, members of the Student Executive Committee checked in and responded to each classmate individually, making sure no one slipped through the cracks,” she said. Told. “After all, we are all one big family and no one is ever left behind.
“And thanks to the wonderful COM administrators and faculty finding a way, we were able to graduate on time. You guys are truly amazing people.”
In a way, this day was a contrasting study of hellos and goodbyes. Glamor, atmosphere, and academic courtesy mixed with the sounds of yelling, yelling, and honking. laughter and tears. Old connections come full circle. And changing roles and new perspectives.
But the overall atmosphere was joyful and hopeful.
“I’m going to take one child away and leave the other,” said Ravneet Grewal, Ph.D., a medical oncologist in Northern Virginia. She and her husband Tej Grewal watched her son Dr. Kabir Grewal graduate on Saturday. Their daughter, Kayanath Guruwal, will enter medical school later this month as part of her MD class of 2027.
“We love it here,” said the mother. “The atmosphere is very warm and very cozy.”
Doctors. Jared Wainwright and Lesia Wainwright celebrated their third graduation together on Saturday, but their first as a married couple. They celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary the day before. The high school couple attended the University of Florida together. Wanting to give back to the community before enrolling in medical school, they moved back to Columbia County and spent a year there. She taught science to her eighth graders at Lake Butler Middle School, and he taught biology at Columbia High School.
In addition to earning a doctor’s degree, they added something special while in Tallahassee. That’s his son James.
“My mother made a little regalia for him,” Lesia said. His maternal grandmother Angela Johnson and a large group of family and friends cared for James in the stands while his parents attended graduation.
She has started her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Texas Medical School in Galveston, and he will also be doing research at the UTMB.
Neither of Aliha Ali’s parents were able to attend – her mother is now in Bangladesh helping her mother sort out her estate and her father woke up sick in Orlando on Saturday – but , she painted her picture surrounded by good friends and the people who welcomed her into the world. first breath.
Twenty-five years after Fort Pierce Obstetrics and Gynecology Juliette Lomax gave birth to little Ahriha, Fort Pierce Regional Campus dean Juliette Lomax-Homiye put a hood on Dr. welcomed her.
“I think it was my father who realized midway through my anatomy semester that Dean Lomax Hommia was my mother’s obstetrician, Dr. Lomax,” Dr. Ali said. “We lived in Okeechobee, which is very rural, and the hospital there wasn’t allowed to give birth. Her mother had to go to the doctor in Fort Pierce.”
Ali plans to go to the University of South Florida’s Morthani School of Medicine for internal medicine training, after which he hopes to participate in a respiratory and critical care fellowship.
In his opening comments, Professor Littles paid tribute to Charlie Ouimet, a former faculty member who passed away earlier this month, winner of 21 teaching awards and “arguably the most honored teacher in the 23-year history of this medical school.” expressed the meaning of In honor of his memory, she shared what Ouimet said during her commencement address in 2012. Families of graduates should “begin practicing how to drop into casual conversation the fact that your loved one is now a doctor.”
Like Omet, Littles asks the family to stand up and count to three and say, “My (blank) doctor!” asked to They did, but there was still laughter.
Commencement speaker Dr. Christy Alexander, the first graduate of the medical college in 2005 and also the first to return to the college as a full-time faculty member, shared that Oimet spoke at the commencement bottom. She left her FSU to run a small private clinic in the high desert countryside of West Texas.
She shared four insights she’s gained over her career. Put her own oxygen mask on first. Be an advocate for patients, colleagues and the community. And to honor the gift of healing given to you, reflect on what happened that day.
“Network. Find peers. Ask colleagues, mentors, family and friends,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to reach out.”