Drexel University College of Medicine - Medic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 12 text:

9 -sv TO THE MEMBERS of the senior class I offer my sincere congratulations. You have completed one of the big steps in your medical education and are now passing from the more formal phase into the less formal but certainly equally important phases of your development. You will tind as you come into contact and subtle competition with graduates from other schools that you have received the finest of medical educations. The difficulties of the training you know, the excel- lence and versatility of the training you will come to appreciate only with the passage of time. The new training period upon which you now embark differs from your previous training in one important aspect and this is so important that failure to attend to this aspect can cancel all accomplish- ments attained so far. The standards of perform- ance to date have been to a great extent external, from now on they must be progressively from within. During Medical School and before if you failed to accomplish to a degree of perfection considered necessary by the faculty you were so informed promptly and often forcefully. You received grades indicating the degree of excellence and were penal- ized for poor performance. During your Internship, Residency and later prac- tice the degree of external evaluation will decrease to the vanishing point. It must be rapidly replaced by internal criticism and evaluation. Your demands upon yourself must become greater than the most intolerant of your teachers. Ten years from now you will be either a fine or a poor physician depending on what you have done during that ten years, not on what you did during medical school and before, You have the basic knowledge and the basic con- cepts, build on them! Hugh D. Bennett, M.D. Associate Dean

Page 11 text:

To the Graduating Seniors: Four brief years have passed and another group of fine young men and women are leaving Hahnemann after being schooled in the knowledge and discipline of medicine. Perhaps these same four years represent the period of greatest growth in Hahnemann's T77 year history. You have witnessed this progress. You have been a part of it. You have contributed significantly to it. The 7964 graduating class will be remembered here as the class which rose above obstacles and stood for the highest levels of integrity. You upheld the purposes of an Honor System and you struggled with the technicalities of composing and conducting one. Hopefully, this opportunity which you have created here will remain indefinitely for the benefit of the students who come after you and who have the courage and the mature judgment to use it. As you prepare to leave l can assure you that the Faculty and Administration shall not be content with the developments of recent years. Together with all other medical schools throughout the country Hahnemann must grow further. We need new buildings and other physical facilities, and in this regard our plans for further growth are well advanced. On the other hand, education is our fundamental purpose, and program planning requires more serious study and thought before our final direction will be set. Such plans cannot be left to the whim of a few nor to the apparent drift of the times, and so we must proceed carefully. Periods of discouragement lie ahead for those who will devote their energy and time to this undertaking but our Faculty has shown that it is prepared to endure these trials. I have no doubt that as the years roll on our edu- cational programs will set a pace for others to match. What part do you now play in all these matters? You have derived the foundation of your professional life from Hahnemann. As long as the school continues to progress and to achieve further stature among the distinguished institutions for medical learning in the world, the dignity of your degree will be upheld. This is Hahnemann's con- tinuing obligation to you. As the years go by, however, it shall be your responsibility to give Hahnemann your continued interest, your understanding and your support for the high purposes and standards of excellence which are the basis for this stature. No faculty by itself can accomplish the redevelopment which is under way here. As you transfer from the ranks of the trainee to the columns of the practitioner, as you leave behind your days as a student to take up the years of an alumnus, we look to you for encouragement. My best wishes to each of you, and may God bless you. William F. Kellow, M.D.

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PRE LU DE Four years of our allotted lifetime have passed. Measured by the few tangible values that are the only remains of their passing . . . a receding hairline, a new vocabulary, a degree of portliness in our demeanor and appearance, a Doctor's degree, a new way of thinking. Measured by these remains, those four years might have been con- sidered slow and dreary, and well rid of and so become unmourned in their passing. But these things are but the ashes, not the fuel which made the four years' flame burn so brightly and so swiftly. The happenings -the high spots, the sorrows, the ioys - these are the intangibles which made the four years swift in their passing. These, in retrospect, are the things which have made the past four years an unforgettable part of our lives . . .