CLASS OF 2009

Robes and Roles: Student Speakers Model Future

The three student speakers at this year’s HMS and HSDM Class Day each looked toward the future through the lens of past experience.

In her talk, titled “Always Remember,” Cara Riley, the HSDM speaker, said that while she felt no more qualified than any of her classmates to dispense advice, she could share the lessons she learned from her mentors and fellow students that would continue to be helpful during internship and beyond. Some of these included, “Always remember to love learning” and to “surround yourself with people who you think are better than you.” We have the tools to be successful, Riley said, “enjoy using them.”

Photos by Jan Reiss/Steve Gilbert/Steve Gilbert

From left, Cara Riley, Raj Gopal and Heather Gunn urged their fellow graduates to embrace the ­uncertainty—and therefore vast ­possibility—that they face after medical and dental school.

MD–PhD grad Raj Gopal’s talk, “The Case of Mr. H.M.S,” was reminiscent of the many case studies the Class of ’09 pored over as students. This patient’s chief complaint? Fear, with a history of attending Harvard Medical School. Gopal went on to describe a patient suffering from the fear of beginning his internship, but also experiencing the eager anticipation of finally becoming a doctor. “In fact, it is not really even a fear per se, but rather a complex symptom borne out of making a pledge to do no harm and a desire to care for the suffering,” Gopal said. “Regardless of its etiology, this feeling is potent, it is powerful, and it will effect change if it is not just faced, but rather harnessed.” He urged his classmates to celebrate this fear, because it signals a sense of humility along with empowerment. For his hypothetical patient, he prescribed an HMS diploma. “Take one of these, and trust me,” Gopal said, “you won’t need to call me in the morning.”

The second HMS student speaker, Heather Gunn, began her talk, “Plan B,” by quoting the opening line from David Copperfield, in which the eponymous character wonders if he will become the hero of his own life. “It’s a great premise that your life’s work is to become the hero of your own life,” said Gunn, but she noted that sometimes it can take a few tries. Medical school was Gunn’s own plan B, and she offered her classmates the lessons she learned from that experience, such as finding inspiration in unlikely places. In Gunn’s case, inspiration to apply to medical school in her mid-30s came from a “mediocre, shamelessly sentimental and very manipulative” movie she had watched from her couch. She ended, as she had begun, with a quote from David Copperfield, challenging her classmates to fully immerse themselves in whatever it is they decide to do.

—Emily Lieberman

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