126 Men and Women to Graduate from UCSD School of Medicine
Newswise — First the cheers, then the tears will roll when 126 graduates receive their M.D. degrees on Sunday, June 5, 2005 at commencement ceremonies for the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Amongst the graduates will be 57 women and three people who completed the medical scientist training program jointly receiving their M.D. and Ph.D. degrees.
Marye Anne Fox, UCSD Chancellor, and Edward Holmes, Dean of the School of Medicine will welcome the graduates and guests, followed by student speaker, H.Eric Bender and commencement speaker, Blair Sadler, President and Chief Executive Officer of Children's Hospital and Health Center.
Bender was selected by his classmates to deliver the student address. He will implore his fellow graduates not to let medicine define them but rather to determine their identities by their individual characters and the unique ways in which they share their gifts with others. Bender will begin a transitional internship at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia, near where he grew up in southern New Jersey.
Several students won a wide range of awards. Other students endured unusual journeys to reach this graduation day, perhaps none more unusual than Walter Root.
At 48 years of age Root is admittedly the oldest class graduate. Root wanted to attend medical school since his college days. But an early marriage and children on the way made him question whether it was fair to ask his young family to endure the financial hardship of medical school, internship, residency and fellowship. He opted to attend graduate business school instead which lead to a successful business career at Ford, Frito Lay and Mission Foods. Once his children were taken care of he decided to pursue his dream. Seven years ago he quit his job to live off of savings and return to college to complete post baccalaureate work in the sciences.
"My wife thought I was nuts," recalls Root.
But he wasn't alone in his educational quest. During his freshman year in the School of Medicine, his son, Brad, was completing his senior undergraduate year at UCSD. Over the next four years his son Brad began a Ph.D. at UCSD and his wife completed a master's degree. On Saturday, May 21 his daughter received her undergraduate degree at San Francisco State University.
Root will enter a psychiatry residency at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, where he spent many years working for Frito Lay.
When Julie Gladsjo entered UCSD's medical school in 1999 she came with impressive credentials, she was already a Ph.D. in psychology, working as an assistant clinical professor in UCSD's Senior Behavioral Health Unit. At the end of her first year she found out she was pregnant, to be a first-time mother. She and her husband figured it wouldn't make too much of an impact.
"I planned to take off one year, then I found out I was carrying twins in June 2000," she says.
When her doctor put her on total bedrest at 25 weeks gestation she thought her educational pursuits would have to take a long hiatus. But her friends, instructors and staff in the Office of Student Affairs were determined to help her finish as many courses as possible. She completed final exams that quarter in bed, proctored by professors and staff from the Office of Student Affairs, including the histology exam which required use of a microscope in her bed and another where the proctor beamed medical slides on her bedroom wall. Because of the sequential course requirements, Gladsjoe ultimately took off two years, returning when her twins were 18 months old.
"Actually, I couldn't have returned earlier," she recalls. "I was so tired I couldn't remember my address much less medical and scientific terms."
Next up, Gladsjoe will enter a one year internal medicine internship in San Diego followed by a dermatology residency at UCSD.
Kei Yamada has been a runner for nearly 10 years, a sport he says got him through medical school. "It's been an integral part of surviving medical school," he says explaining that long distance running is a mental challenge, which he likens to medical school. "Runners continue to punish their bodies, running through the pain, all to wake up the following day and do it all over again. That's what medical school is like. It takes both love and devotion to continue."
Yamada will enter an internal medicine internship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles followed by a radiology residency at Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston.
