Embargoed for release 5 p.m. MDT, May 13, 2000
Contact: Dave Weymiller, 970/491-6851
The Secret of Success
Commencement Address
College of Natural Sciences
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Saturday, May 13, 2000
5:00 p.m.
Thomas R. Reardon, MD
President
American Medical Association
Thank you, Dean Raich and thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Honored graduates. Esteemed faculty. Loving spouses. Valued friends. Impoverished parents:
It feels good, doesn't it? You've done the work. The bills are paid. The loans won't fall due for a few more weeks. You've gotten here.
And we're launching you out into a whole new world. And this afternoon, as you launch this voyage of discovery, as you invade that new world with your knowledge and enthusiasm, I want to give you a brief word of encouragement. And it's a gift. A graduation gift from me to you.
I am going to give you the secret to a lifetime of success. It's a secret I believe will help you on that voyage, help make the sailing smoother.
To be honest, whichever of the natural sciences you chose, one thing is certain: You will be challenged in a big way. Not only to keep up with what's going on, but to create the next waves of innovation in your field of expertise.
Is there any doubt that you have chosen the most exciting career path in the world? And what better time to do it than when the world is ripe for innovation?
In my own case, in the 44 years since I graduated, the field of medicine has been revolutionized. Back then, medicine was at the point where we had some new tools to prevent and treat the age-old killers like pneumonia and dysentery and polio.
Now, with CAT scans and MRI's and a host of new technologies, we not only can detect symptoms earlier, we can begin treatment sooner and have techniques and procedures undreamed of back in the 1950's.
And today, we're on the edge of the greatest breakthrough medicine has ever known. As a result of the human genome project, soon there will be therapeutic genes and gene-based diagnosis.
And we will have moved from treatment to cure to actually predict and prevent disease before it begins.
So life expectancy, which has increased 10 years in my lifetime, is bound to increase again and again and again, as a result.
Now, that's pretty exciting stuff. Increasing longevity means increasing the quality of life as well as the quantity of years lived. Increasing longevity means actual hard-dollar payout for this country.
Two University of Chicago economists have calculated the gain at $2.8 trillion dollars per year added to our Gross Domestic Product.
But I look at increased longevity in individual terms. In the investment we're making in the infrastructure of this country, in healthier lives, happier lives and longer, more productive, more rewarding lives.
Improving the health of the nation improves the wealth of the nation. Beyond medicine, there are other factors contributing to the longest peacetime economic expansion in the history of the planet. Unemployment is low. Technology has made life longer and easier than ever. Crime is down.
The United States stands at the top of the charts, worldwide.
But that is not the secret of success.
The secret is behind the numbers. It's in the individual lives of men, women and children. For example:
-- The man diagnosed with coronary artery blockage who, after triple bypass surgery, is out there playing golf five times a week and enjoying himself with his friends in the 19th hole afterwards.
-- The woman with worn-out knees whose replacement surgery lets her globe-trot with her friends, buying gifts for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren as she goes.
-- Or the young woman with chronic asthma who, just a few decades ago, would have been homebound at best, and doomed to shortened life at worst, now follows a treatment regimen that gives her full, normal and, most importantly, prolonged life.
It's not the quantity of life, then, but the quality of life that medicine has improved. And there lies the secret of success:
Helping other human beings. One at a time.
And, no matter where your voyage of discovery takes you, you will find your own very special, very unique personal satisfaction not in the quantity of lives you affect but in the quality of those individual lives. One by one by one.
In my role as president of the American Medical Association this past year, I have had the privilege to meet with enormously successful people. In government, in business, in everyday life. Some of them have been enormously successful but will never be featured on the cover of People Magazine.
And their success has that common denominator of help. And each of you will, too. No matter what field you have chosen, there is one common truism to each of you graduating today.
Your field is ripe for change. It is on the brink of revolution. It is more and more ready for your contributions, your creativity, your enthusiasm.
To find what is best in your field, to concentrate on what are the finest aspects of your science, to devote yourself 100 percent to the things of consequence, the values and the valuable, so that America continues to prosper, continues to lead, continues to be that bright, shining city on the hill.
Yes, you'll find that qualitative success I'm talking about. I'm convinced of it.
Someone once defined a cynic as that person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Well, don't be a cynic. A skeptic, yes. Because the history of science is really the story of disciplined skepticism.
And you can use disciplined skepticism in your field to serve others, and you'll always be a success. Know the value of what you're doing and consider it every day of your life.
For me, as a graduate of this outstanding institution back in 1956, there was no doubt where I was headed. It was medicine for me, and for three pretty good reasons:
First, you're a member of one of the most prestigious professions in the world.
Second, society places a high value on what you do as a physician.
And third, no matter what happens, no one can take away that fundamental, visceral satisfaction you get from taking care of patients.
From helping another human being. From helping the healing process take place.
Taken together, those were not the elements of success. But, they set the stage for success. They describe the environment in which I could help another person.
So, I emphasize that, in all the sciences, there is plenty of room for you to help other human beings. And that means, in all the sciences, plenty of room for success.
No matter what your field of study, your success is only going to be found in others. In serving others. In finding the good and the right and the noble in your situation. And, then, in sharing it with another person.
So, that's my gift to you. The secret of lifelong success is serving others.
And with that gift, let me add my sincere congratulations for what you've accomplished.
One final note:
Let me thank you in advance for all the good you will do. For all the service you will perform. For all the radical new change you will create. For all the human beings you will serve. And for the nation that you will re-make in the days ahead.
Go out and change the world.
Congratulations and Godspeed on your voyage.
###
Dr. Thomas Reardon is a 1956 graduate of Colorado State University. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Colorado in 1959, interned at Baltimore City Hospital and served in the Air Force before spending more than 30 years as a general practitioner in Portland, Ore. Dr. Reardon received the Morgan Distinguished Alumni Award, the university's top alumni achievement honor, from Colorado State in 1999.
RSS