We have arrived at the end of another COVID-impacted academic year, with continued uncertainty as to the future of the pandemic moving forward. Omicron variants continue to lurk and are still infecting many. But fortunately, these infections are not leading to the levels of hospitalizations and death that were seen over the winter. With COVID at least somewhat in the background, summer has arrived — finally.
I congratulate and wish great success to the medical school class of 2022 who graduated a few weeks ago. We also look forward to the upcoming graduation of the residents and fellows who will finish training at the end of June, as well as to welcoming the incoming group of residents and fellows who will be joining us to start the next phase of their training. Coupled with the arrival of the new medical school class in August, this begins the "spring" of our medical education year.
After the UNMC graduation ceremonies at Baxter Arena on the morning of Saturday, May 7, I jumped in my car and drove six-plus hours to St. Louis to attend a dinner that evening with classmates with whom I graduated high school 50 years ago. I made it with an hour to spare. For those of you doing the math in your head, I am 67. This was the first high school reunion event I can remember attending. Since I left St. Louis for college and never really lived there afterward, I had not seen most of the attendees for five decades. The graduating class size was only 63, and at the time I attended it was an all-boys school.
Nevertheless, I probably would have only recognized a small fraction of my classmates had one of the organizers not had the forethought to add everyone’s high school graduation photos to their nametags. In many cases, including my own, what used to be a magnificent head of hair was no more. How did all these young faces turn into this group of old guys?
It was a nice evening of reconnecting, and I was certainly taken by the impressive accomplishments of my classmates in the arts, medicine, science, education and business over the course of their lives since graduation. At the same time, it was sobering to learn that 10 had died and that at least several others had serious medical issues.
My drive back to Omaha the next day, with a brief detour to Iowa City for Mother’s Day lunch, gave me plenty of time for reflection, and I will share a couple of thoughts. Three in the class became physicians, with two of us in attendance at the event. The connection that we had with one another as fellow physicians was immediate and like no other that I experienced with the other attendees that evening. This reinforced a theme from the various speakers and protocol at both hooding and graduation I’d attended only a short time before: Becoming a physician provides entry into a professional family whose common experiences and support is like no other and should not be taken for granted. It is indeed special.
Secondly, medicine is a tremendously rewarding career, yet one that demands time and sacrifice. In hindsight, there are times in which I passed on opportunities that would have been personally enriching, or were important to friends and family, because of dedication to the profession. That 50 years since graduation has gone fast, and putting things off until "I have more time" has ultimately meant that I have missed out on some things that will now never be possible. So, learning to balance professional responsibilities with responsibilities to yourself and others is something that is a constant challenge as a physician. As I depart in the next few days on two weeks away, I am going to try and take my own advice and do a better job of achieving that balance.