5-23-06

SIU Graduation

The seventy-five new physicians who just graduated from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine heard from Senator Barack Obama, their commencement speaker.

Commencement exercises for the 32 nd graduating class of S-I-U School of Medicine took place this past Saturday (May 20) in Springfield. Senator Obama made a special request of the Class of 2006.

SOUND BITE: " . . . I'm asking you to be more than just practitioners of medicine, I'm asking you to be advocates for health. I ask you to be advocates for a system that is fair, that is just, and that provides every since American, the best your profession has to offer. You're going to have to choose -- will the medical miracles you perform reach only the luckiest few or will history look back at this moment as the time when we finally make care available at a cost we can afford?"

Senator Obama told the new physicians that 46 million Americans are not covered by health insurance and that more than half of family bankruptcies today are cause by medical bills. He said if we do nothing, millions more people will be without health insurance in the next 10 years.

Dr. Jason Gillihan, chair of the graduating class of 2006, told his classmates that they will leave commencement as a different person – a physician.

SOUND BITE: "You"ll have responsibilities far greater than you have ever had in the past. Patient's lives will be in your hands. They will come to you when they are in their weakest, most vulnerable moments. They will look to you when they are hurt, when they are afraid. I ask that you carry with you the qualities that you want from your own physician -- compassion, competence, humility, the ability to communicate and be a good listener, professionalism and respect."

The new SIU physicians will begin their residency training in their chosen specialty fields in July. Two thousand forty-three (2,043) physicians have earned SIU medical degrees since 1975.

This is Ruth Slottag, SIU School of Medicine in Springfield.