Message from Ryan Machiele, Class President

CLASS PRESIDENT - RYAN MACHIELE

Class of 2020 - I’m so happy to be graduating with all of you. This has been a little different than I thought it would be - probably a little different than all of us thought it would be and not something really any of us saw coming. So, so much for that, you know - great 20/20 vision to the future! But, we made it, and what is always 20/20 vision is hindsight.

Medical school has been a tremendous privilege for all of us to identify what our limits are and then to have the resources to work past them. To move the goalpost a bit, to identify a weakness and be able to turn it into a strength with mentorship and support and guidance. And I want to acknowledge, the hard work that it took to do that, but also the amount of guidance and mentorship and nourishment that got us through this in order to come out on top - to become better and more competent and more capable through facing challenges and staring down our weaknesses.

It’s kind of a tricky time to be celebrating. I think I really wrestled with that as well. Just how do I exuberantly celebrate my accomplishments, our accomplishments, while also honoring that this is a hard time for so many of us. This is a hard time for our nation. A time that doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to just throwing a great big party. I do think that it’s important that we do both; that we celebrate what we’ve done, and that we also acknowledged that this is a hard time, and it’s not perfect.

I think that our graduation is a celebration of us jumping into careers as people who will be entering situations that are tricky. People who will be treating diseases that are heartbreaking and handling situations that are sad. And so I don’t think this is a tension that will necessarily go away. But, I do want for us to really celebrate - where we are and where we’ve been.

Class of 2020 - thank you and congratulations!

Ryan Machiele, Class President