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OCR Page 1 of 72Commencement Speech
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
Harvard Medical School
June 4, 1998
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Martin, Dr. Federman, Dr. Donoff. I am
delighted to be here. I want to thank the class for extending this invitation to me. I have, as you
might expect, attended numerous commencement ceremonies in my lifetime and I must say I
have never attended one where we've already heard so many good speeches. We could quit right
now and feel that we had been in the presence of some extraordinary young people who imparted
some rather significant words of advice, and even wisdom to us. I want to commend to co-
moderators, Dr. Bryant and Dr. Somers, for this commencement ceremony (applause) and I want
to thank the student speakers. I want to thank Dr. Cook for not only reminding us that it's done,
Mom and Dad, but for showing extraordinary composure while speaking in the course of having
a helicopter take off in the background. I want to thank Dr. Babagbemi for her eloquent
description of On-Call, but even more for her understanding of what the requirements are for one
who has been blessed with the kind of education and gifts that she has on behalf of humanity.
And I want to thank Dr. Mitchell for reminding us that in life it is competence, and confidence,
and compassion that separate us as human beings from mere technicians.
Each of these student speakers has already set the stage for the graduation of this extraordinary
class. This class comes with, I'm sure, a range of emotions that we can only guess at--
exhilaration and exhaustion among them. But also, as we've already heard, a lot of gratitude for
the opportunities that they have been given. They also deserve gratitude from us for undertaking
the rigorous education which they have, for pushing themselves to the limits and now for going
into the world ready to use their talents and their education on behalf of the rest of us.
They have made many sacrifices. More than 70 percent of this class had to take out loans to
complete the degrees that they receive today. They will be paying back those loans for a number
of years, and I hope that we as a nation will continue to look for ways to provide financial
support to students such as these so that they do not have to go into the debt that these young
graduates have. (Applause) Some of these graduates, these new doctors and dentists, are the first
in their families to attend college. Some have completed their educations while they were caring
for their own families. Some are recent immigrants to our country. More than 15 percent
managed to earn additional degrees, and all of them have worked extremely hard. They deserve
this celebration by family and friends, and by alumni of these institutions who are gathered here
to pay you credit. I hope that each of you feels the competence and the confidence that you've
already heard described, because I can imagine that as you think about your new futures you've
got some questions in your mind. You're thinking about the next chapters of your lives.
Now, I don't think the food wherever you're going will be as good as the restaurants on Newbury
Street. The sleeping accommodations are not going to be exactly five-star ones. You know where
you're going, it's called internship or specialty training. As we've already heard that means a lot
of hard work and not very much sleep. And some of you in the dark of night when those beepers
go off or those phone calls come may ask yourselves, 'My goodness, am I ready for all of this?'
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