Pictured:Dr. Kellerman is shown congratulating Lt. Gabriel Lapid, MD, at the JABSOM 2018 Convocation Ceremony where Dr. Lapid received his commission. Dr. Lapid will train in residency at Navy Medical Center San Diego.
“”There is a powerful sense of mission and of duty at this school that’s obvious in the student body. It’s obvious in the kinds of programs that you have shaped and developed here and I think it’s what a state medical school should be all about, and I’ve never been to one where that is more transparent and clearly a part of the culture … than I’ve seen here,” said Dr. Arthur Kellermann, Dean of the Uniformed Services University medical school, speaking about the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawaiʻi.
By Tina Shelton JABSOM Communications Director
A touching ceremony, infused with the scent of maile lei, is a ritual at the University of Hawaiʻi medical school, an annual sendoff for our graduating MDs. Called the “Convocation Ceremony,” the new MDs are introduced individually and bedecked with lei by proud parents, grandparents, spouses, children, and aunties and uncles. Tears of joy flow.
We at JABSOM relish those moments, but we are used to them. For the keynote speaker invited by the Dean to address the new physicians each year, the traditional ceremony makes a profound impression.
“While (the new graduates) have a lot of people to thank, and owe a debt to the faculty of this school, the real teachers, the ones who taught them the most important lessons of all, are the people in that audience that are there to cheer them on. They’re the ones who taught them the why of medicine, not the what, the where or the how. It’s the moms and the dads and grandparents and the aunts and the uncles and the friends who inspired them,” said Dr. Kellermann, in an interview on May 11.
Dr. Kellermann also grasps similarities in the missions of both JABSOM, which produces physicians for Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, and of the school he leads, the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, which produces physicians who serve in the American military services.
“We both basically focus on critical populations that are under-represented in American medicine: Native Hawaiian and Polynesian students on one hand here (at JABSOM) and veterans and active-duty service members at our school (F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine).”
Highlights of our video interview with Dr. Kellerman is interspersed with bits of the MD 2018 Convocation and 2018 Kīhei Ceremonies.
Kellermann Interview Transcript
Related Stories:
Moms and new MDs celebrate during Mother’s Day Convocation Ceremony
Kīhei Ceremony for 2018 MD Class of six new Native Hawaiian, Pacific Island physicians
UH Med Now Journalist/Media Design team member Deborah Manog contributed to this report.