{"id":8591,"date":"2019-06-13T11:59:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T15:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/?p=8591"},"modified":"2019-06-13T11:59:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T15:59:36","slug":"graduation-speech-2019-lewis-goldfrank-md","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/blog\/goldfranks-corner\/graduation-speech-2019-lewis-goldfrank-md\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduation Speech 2019 \u2013 Lewis Goldfrank, MD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graduation Speech <\/strong><\/p>\n

Lewis R. Goldfrank, MD<\/em><\/p>\n

(June 12, 2019)<\/em><\/p>\n

Congratulations on your graduation. \u00a0This milestone and the commencement of your increased independence are a tribute to your fine work. \u00a0Your future accomplishments will be substantial.<\/p>\n

Your team<\/strong><\/p>\n

You as a class will have developed immensely profound bonds. \u00a0Being a physician is a creative task.\u00a0 Stay undaunted, nurture inspiration in each other. \u00a0Recognition of the importance of creating a quality healthcare team allows \u201c\u2019us\u201d to succeed in rendering care to patients, ensuring our success as physician advocates and social activists.\u00a0 Each patient needs more analysis, attention and devotion than any of us can accomplish as individuals, no matter how hard we strive.<\/p>\n

Fast vs. Slow medicine<\/strong><\/p>\n

You must always try to improve your understanding of your patients\u2019 needs and the complexity of their problems. \u00a0Your commitment to your patients can only achieve an improvement in health when you understand your patients. \u00a0There are phases of your work when procrastination might be lethal for your patients, when fast medicine is essential. \u00a0There are also phases of your work when rushing will limit your understanding, your creativity, and your devotion to your patients. \u00a0Technology offers to speed our efforts and although it can be efficient for emergency physicians, it may not be effective and may even be counterproductive.<\/p>\n

Attempting to accomplish a task is often done too quickly\u2014which deprives you of wholly understanding the patient\u2019s needs and limits your potential to achieve excellent care.\u00a0 It is under those circumstances that slow medicine is essential.<\/p>\n

Questioning<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember: All the essential questions should be asked and all of the patient\u2019s queries, addressed. \u00a0As well, remind yourself each day that there are no inconsequential questions.\u00a0 When thought about in depth, questions or problems that seem inconsequential at first, often actually represent matters of great consequence.<\/p>\n

Humanism and science<\/strong><\/p>\n

Your equal devotion to humanism and scientific rigor will be essential.\u00a0 Your skills, expertise and commitment should lead to research, innovation, and team development.\u00a0 To maintain your creativity and integrity you must recognize the unique importance of your role, while never distancing yourself from those aspects of your tasks that are often considered routine.\u00a0 Your patients\u2019 lives will be in your hands each day. \u00a0Your students\u2019 careers will be in your hands each day. \u00a0Your acts will heal, innovate and educate.\u00a0 Experiences with those patients whose lives you impact will stay with you not silent and still as photographs but as noisy, fraught, poignant videos\u2014shared and replayed by your patients and coworkers.<\/p>\n

Indeed, these experiences will create memories for many. \u00a0Make sure that you have done the best you can do.\u00a0 Be a model of good leadership\u2014independent of hierarchy and continuously demonstrating significant respect for all.<\/p>\n

Teaching and mentoring<\/strong><\/p>\n

The simple approach to learning is that the more we learn, indeed the more we know BUT<\/strong>\u2014the less certain we are and therefore the more we need to study.\u00a0 Make opportunities to share your immense knowledge and wisdom, as that will be very useful to others and will continue to expand the breadth and depth of your knowledge. \u00a0Take your roles as mentors very seriously.\u00a0 You will learn as much from your mentees as I have from you.\u00a0 Some relationships will be transient, and others will continue development over a lifetime. \u00a0Both types of experiences are immensely valuable and are often remembered as important and even foundational for your entire career.<\/p>\n

Maintaining humanism<\/strong><\/p>\n

You now understand the emergency department work environment. Each of you must find a reasonable approach to patients and peers that allows you to retain the humanistic values all must search for in medicine. \u00a0Pessimism in medicine will become a self-inflicted wound, diminishing your vision, resilience and commitment. \u00a0There is no place for pessimism or the faint hearted in emergency medicine.<\/p>\n

Your skills are too great, your roles too important to allow an error, a criticism, or uncertainty to lessen your enthusiasm, your creativity or your integrity and belief in humanity.\u00a0 A powerful debate continues among the historic optimists, the new optimists and the possibilists. \u00a0Voltaire, as an optimist, could not have written \u201cCandide\u201d had he not believed that most people in the world were quite good. \u00a0Bill Gates, as a new optimist, would say you need to be inspired by people and that you must proclaim discontent with the world and demand progress. \u00a0Hans Rosling, a Swedish Physician\/Statistician as a \u201cpossibilist,\u201d might say that \u201che neither hopes without reason nor fears without reason\u201d and acts to achieve that which is possible.\u00a0 Each of these important thinkers chose a divergent pathway to advance societal good through humanism.\u00a0 I believe that your patient care experiences and your patients\u2019 stories will preserve your love of medicine.<\/p>\n

Advocacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our nation is a theoretical champion of individual rights, which have only been achieved by sacrificing the principle of a common good. \u00a0That sacrifice is unacceptable. \u00a0I believe that you have the curiosity and wisdom to meet the great challenges of our society.\u00a0 I believe that you\u2014now with your skills and training\u2014have the obligation to use your knowledge, your positions of power and privilege, your capacity to understand and empathize and your strong voices to protect those abused because of race, religion, gender\u2014or their otherness.<\/p>\n

You now must speak up and speak out against the injustices and inequalities inherent in our communities, here and elsewhere. \u00a0You must speak out against xenophobia, isolationism and the fear of destruction by others.\u00a0 Your task is complicated and enriched by caring for a large number of people with extreme heterogeneity of cultures, social determinants and health needs making the achievement of excellence remarkably valuable, and often seeming just out of reach. \u00a0Your task is to do what is right, which is often, neither the convenient, nor the profitable. \u00a0Your roles will be those of big vision physician activists who will be intelligent, courageous physician advocates and leaders.\u00a0 Your task for the foreseeable future will be to achieve healthcare rights for all.<\/p>\n

You have been privileged to study at the bedside of many, you have been exposed to innumerable problems and now you must choose to correct the problems and to search for or create the essential solutions.\u00a0 My experience here at New York University and Bellevue Hospital in New York City has shown me that nothing is impossible.\u00a0 One often thinks of these problems as the intractable social determinants, but you have been at work every day with faculty who have successfully devoted their careers to addressing social determinants previously considered insoluble.\u00a0 Certainly, this approach has personal risks\u2014you will recognize, however, that if your patients are suffering injustices, and you timidly do nothing, or not enough, your suffering will be greater.<\/p>\n

Your\/our future<\/strong><\/p>\n

Setting out\/stepping forth now, you surely have many goals, but the energy that allows you to achieve a goal or dream\u2014usually leads to satisfaction\u2014often not elation\u2014because by the time success arrives you will already be preparing for the next dream or project.\u00a0 The destination we physicians have in emergency medicine is uncertain. It is often determined by a series of patients, a family or one memorable individual human being.<\/p>\n

The almost infinite variety of human experiences which we have in common with our patients forces us to delve into and analyze all of medicine, anthropology, ethics, public policy, population health and much more. \u00a0It is these patients and our experiences in the service of their needs, our research and ongoing learning that sustains us and offers us an antidote to burnout.<\/p>\n

We are truly doctors without borders. \u00a0You will have unlimited opportunities to express your immense potentials. \u00a0Enjoy the experience! \u00a0Recognize the opportunity!\u00a0 You and I and our profession will be judged by the progress we make in addressing the needs of those who have been neglected, discriminated against, or abused\u2014the uninsured, the undocumented, and many more.<\/p>\n

It is unconscionable that healthcare in America is considered a privilege. \u00a0It must be our goal to achieve equity for all in healthcare. \u00a0We must meet the health needs of every single person.\u00a0 Universal health care is fundamental, if our values are to be realized.\u00a0 In the future people will ask: Where were you and what did you do when the homeless, the opioid users, the uninsured and the newest immigrants were neglected?<\/p>\n

Your first response should be\u2014I was trained and worked at Bellevue Hospital.<\/p>\n

We count on you to make remarkable contributions to address these issues as the future leaders of medicine.<\/p>\n

Congratulations\u2014your advocacy and activism will be essential.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graduation Speech <\/strong><\/p>\n

Lewis R. Goldfrank, MD<\/em><\/p>\n

(June 12, 2019)<\/em><\/p>\n

Congratulations on your graduation. \u00a0This milestone and the commencement of your increased independence are a tribute to your fine work. \u00a0Your future accomplishments will be substantial.<\/p>\n

Your team<\/strong><\/p>\n

You as a class will have developed immensely profound bonds. \u00a0
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":3414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/coreem.net\/content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/LG-Image.jpg?fit=970%2C634&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8591"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8598,"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591\/revisions\/8598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coreem.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}