An Amalgam of Talents

Distinguished faculty, alumni, peers, family and friends,

Thank you all so much for supporting us on this special day in our lives: the day that we officially become doctors. To our faculty and mentors, your dedication and efforts brought us to this moment in our professional careers. And thank you to our family and friends for your encouragement throughout this journey. We could not have reached this point without you all.

I would like to begin by taking us back to our first moments here. Many of us described a feeling of imposter syndrome—how had we obtained admission to arguably the greatest university on earth? I remember feeling small in the grand presence of Harvard University. For me, as a 5-foot, immigrant, scarf-donning, Muslim woman, I felt inspired but also mildly overwhelmed. Over these past four years, after witnessing all that we have achieved together, those feelings have transformed.

Read more about HMS/HSDM Commencement and Class Day here.

In our cohort of 35 students, we have a Fulbright scholar, a runner up for Miss America, military members, first-generation Americans, first-generation doctors, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes. And specifically during our time in dental school, we have much to celebrate. We engaged in interesting, informative research projects that led to numerous publications and sparked important dialogues in our dental community. We gave back in public health efforts, both locally and globally, to ensure health provisions for all people. We treated hundreds of underserved patients at the teaching practice. We excelled at leadership roles in organized dentistry, lobbying our politicians here in Massachusetts and on Capitol Hill. And our work was commended when we matched to our top choices in residency programs.

I hope that we stay motivated and energized to effect the change required in our profession—whether that be through research, academia, policy, innovation, whatever our calling may be.

Now nobody said that dental school would be easy. That’s certainly not the adjective I would use to describe it. Managing demanding patients, refining our advanced fine motor skills, and achieving perfection however our professors expected it—none of that came naturally. But these challenges brought us closer together as we built relationships that we could count on.

In fact, I think that some of the most notable lessons that we learned came not in the classroom but in these very moments with each other. For example, I learned about collaboration when my classmates shared resources so that all of us could succeed on our national boards. I learned about perseverance when my peers remarkably completed coursework despite injuries, painful medical diagnoses and the unimaginable loss of loved ones. I learned about solidarity when our dean hosted a memorable event to show support for immigrants in a polarizing political climate. I learned about empathy when we held a special vigil to honor victims of violence, including three students who were hatefully murdered in North Carolina. On a lighter note, I learned about happiness when my classmates provided much-needed comic relief in the form of inside jokes and witty remarks over our class’s GroupMe. I learned about trust when we practiced our very first anesthesia injections using each other as guinea pigs and when we subsequently became each other’s patients! And I learned about love, when my classmates dated and subsequently proposed to each other.

I appreciate our faculty for teaching us dentistry, but I also admire my classmates, for illuminating other valuable lessons.

Now traditionally, graduation speeches end with some words of wisdom. And I have to admit that I feel somewhat under-qualified to impart wisdom on a group that has taught me so much. What I might say is that I hope that we stay motivated and energized to effect the change required in our profession—whether that be through research, academia, policy, innovation, whatever our calling may be. For me, personally, I hope that these efforts include diversifying our field. One can’t help but notice the similar appearance of our founding fathers when perusing the portraits that don our institution’s walls. 2017 marks the 150^th anniversary of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine! I know that we have come far—I mean, case in point—but I hope that the next time that I return to this school that I love, I will see our walls peppered with people from a variety of backgrounds.

I have counted down the days to graduation for a while now, but this past week, when my countdown reached single digits, I felt a sadness as I realized that the 35 of us now split up. But as we disperse, I know that we will greatly improve oral health outcomes for our own communities. That demands celebration. We must not underestimate the power that we have. After all, in his work Don Quijote, Miguel de Cervantes wrote—and this was in the 1600s—“Every tooth in a man’s head is more valuable than a diamond.”

Before we return to mining diamonds, however, I hope we will rest today to commemorate all of our achievements so far. Congratulations, we made it!

Adapted from a speech given by HSDM graduate Sara Tejani at Class Day on May 25.