Celebrating our graduates

May 23, 2022

Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Community:

“To live as a doctor is to live so that one's life is bound up in others' and in science and in the messy, complicated connection between the two. It is to live a life of responsibility.”

-Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance

We are about to embark on a graduation week that will be jubilant in many ways. After two years of virtual Class Day ceremonies, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine will reunite in person to recognize our students’ impressive accomplishments. I invite you to view the HMS Graduation 2022 webpage, which includes information for the separate medical, dental, master’s, and doctoral ceremonies.

In gathering to applaud the Class of 2022 this week — as well as the Classes of 2020 and 2021 — we gladly break free of the pixelated, two-dimensional landscape that has constituted so many of our celebratory events during the COVID-19 pandemic. And in the process, we have a chance to live up to the notion, articulated so well by HMS alumnus and faculty member Atul Gawande, that being a doctor is inextricably linked to our humanity … our full-fledged, three-dimensional selves. This sentiment applies not just to doctors, but to all researchers, dentists, health care delivery specialists, and anyone who has answered the call to alleviate suffering and improve health and well-being for all.

I’ve rarely felt more hopeful at the outset of a week than I feel right now. Our festivities honor major achievements on the part of our students and recent graduates — achievements that have been hard-won in the midst of trying circumstances. We have been through much, but these difficulties have also taught us valuable lessons.

The celebrations also serve as a prelude to our new researchers’ and clinicians’ future contributions to transformative science, health care, and dental medicine around the globe. It is always a great privilege to witness our graduates as they receive their degrees and embrace their newfound responsibilities with grace, precision, compassion, and a fierce commitment to equity and justice.

Recent events in the news have been disturbing and painful, and continue to remind us that our world faces many challenges. But our graduates’ dedication to discovery, service, and the overall advancement of human well-being gives me great confidence that the future of the world is in good hands.

We acknowledge that the upcoming graduation and reunion activities are taking place while there are rising COVID case numbers in Boston and Cambridge. The pandemic is not yet behind us, but we are in a much different phase than we were in the past two commencement seasons, with high levels of vaccination in our community and the availability of effective antiviral medications.

As noted in the University-wide email sent earlier today, those attending commencement-related events are strongly encouraged to test each day they attend a scheduled event, even if they are not experiencing symptoms. If you test positive or have symptoms, no matter how mild, you should not attend commencement events. Mask-wearing both indoors and outdoors is also strongly encouraged. We ask all participants to take personal responsibility for their own and each other’s health.

Congratulations to all of you! I look forward to seeing everyone on the Quad in just a few days. Until then, be well, rest up, and revel in this wonderful time of year.

Sincerely,

George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University