(Music Playing) Good evening.

I am Joyce Dejong the dean of the Michigan State Universit College of Osteopathic Medicine.

It is my pleasure to welcome you to this extraordinary day of celebration.

Together we gather to honor the hard work, perseverance, and dedication that have brought our graduates to this moment.

Earning the title of Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine requires years of intense study, hands on training, and an unwavering commitment to patient care.

Our graduates should take great pride in the path they have chosen one of service and care to the families and friends gathered here who have supported them at this moment.

This belongs to you as well.

Your encouragement and sacrifices have made this journey possible.

To our faculty and staff behind me in the crowd.

your mentorship and dedication to this profession have shaped the next generation of osteopathic physicians.

And for that, we are deeply grateful.

So today we celebrate.

We reflect and we look ahead as these graduates step into their calling as doctors of osteopathic medicin and embrace the art of healing.

I am now honored to introduce the president of the class of 2025.

Rijul Maini.

She has served as a voice for her peers in the past four years, demonstrating leadership, dedication, and a deep commitmen to the osteopathic profession.

Please join me in welcoming Rijul.

Thank you.

Dean Dejong.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome.

Today is not just a milestone.

It's a moment we've dreamed of, fought for, and earned through years of hard work, sacrifice, and more resilience than we ever imagined.

We had.

And probably more caffeine than the FDA recommends.

It is a tribute to every sleepless night we endured, every challenge we overcame, and every version of ourselves we outgrew along the way.

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the many people who helped make this day possible.

Our families, friends, mentors, Dean young, distinguished member of the Platform party, faculty, staff, veterans and active service members.

And of course, to the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Class of 2025.

Congratulations, doctors.

We made it!

For those of you who may haven't had the pleasure of meeting, my name is Original Mannie, and I've had the honor of serving as class president for the past four years.

It is an absolute privilege to stand here today alongside my classmates as we celebrate this milestone together.

First, I'd like to recognize the family, friends, and loved ones who have supported us on this journey.

Thank you for being here to celebrate and for standing by us through every stress spiral.

For listening to us explain obscure diseases you never asked about and for not believing us.

Every time we said we were, quote, quitting medicine after one bad quiz.

I also want to honor those who couldn't be here.

The ones who helped shape the physicians you see today.

Whether they're watching from afar or from above, just kno they're incredibly proud of you.

Without our unwavering support systems, there is no way we could hav made it through medical school.

Class of 2025.

Please stand and give a heartfelt round of applause to the peopl who stood by us through it all.

I would also like to take a moment to thank the MSU comm Administration, faculty and staff throughout our medical school journey for your leadership, dedication and support have been invaluable.

You have guided us not only through the typical challenges of medical school, but also through the twists and turns we encountered.

We are deeply grateful for your efforts in shaping u into the doctors we are today.

Last and certainly not least, I want to thank the class government Executive Board members who helped make our medical school experience so meaningful.

This incredible group of students dedicated countless hour to advocating for their peers, planning events, attending meetings, and handling everything in between.

The class of 2025 and I especially could not have done this without you classmates.

Please join me i giving a big round of applause for our amazing student leaders.

When we begin medical school in 2021, the world was just starting to breathe again.

After a year of isolation.

We weren't quite the Covid class, but we were something just as defining.

The class that returne to normal, or at least tried to.

We started anatomy lab in person that summer.

Masked, nervous but eager.

Then in the fall, our first year truly began.

Behind screens, we attended school in sweatpants from our living rooms.

We got to know each other through GroupMe.

Messages shared, Quizlets and Zoom Breakout rooms.

And we took our exams in pajamas.

Fueled by energy drinks, hope and sheer determination.

Just when we found our rhythm in this virtual world, everything shifted again.

Masks came down.

Exams were no longer at home.

Classrooms filled back up.

We relearned what it meant to be together in person, present and fully engaged.

We had to adapt not once, but twice.

And we did so with grit and grace.

Between hours of lectures, exams and labs, we found joy.

Whether it was class, social events, group stud sessions, or post exam hangouts.

We created moment that kept us connected and seen.

We weren't just surviving.

We were building something real.

An MSU community, a family.

But alongside the joy and triumph, we also experienced loss.

Loomi Harp was not just our classmate.

She was so much more.

She embodied everything it means to be a physician.

Kind in the way she listened.

Compassionate in every interaction.

Brilliant, vibrant, endlessly selfless and fiercely ambitious.

Loomis dreame of becoming an ophthalmologist.

Even in her hardest moments.

She reminded us what it means to live fully.

She once said, quote, I wanted to push through the pain, the doubt, the fear.

Perseverance, strength and patience are key.

On September 6th, 2023, we lost the means to stage four breast cancer.

She was 24 years old.

Even in her final days, Loomis remained devoted to her medical education.

Though she should have been here today, I know she is here in spirit.

In her honor, we've left a seat adorned with the regalia she would have worn.

A powerful symbol of her presence and her lasting impact on our class and our hearts.

I'd like to take a moment of silence to honor her.

To carry forward Loomis spirit, her fight and her dreams.

We will be donating our class funds to the Good Fund, a nonprofit organization that helps cover cancer treatment and medical expenses for patients in need.

This is our way of continuing.

The work for me would have done helping others heal.

That spirit of unrelenting determinatio and grit lives on in all of us.

We carried those traits with us when we stepped into the hospital as student doctors for the first time, watching our textbooks come to life.

Working with patients of all ages and backgrounds and learning who we needed to become to heal other with both skill and compassion.

Whether we were i the operating room for countless surgeries, rounding for hours on internal medicine, or delivering babies in the middle of the night.

This was our time to begin figuring out what kind of doctors we wanted to be.

We stumbled.

We improved, and we grew.

Before we knew it, we were in the final stretch of medical school.

We cleared our second grueling nine hour board exam, a test longer than most of us sleep.

We started audition rotations where we had to put on our best performance for months on end.

Day in and day out.

We watched our emails like hawks, nervously hoping that our top choice residency programs would call us for interviews.

And then for months we waited for the final verdict.

Match day.

It was the most iconic yet nerve wracking moment of medical school.

We held our breath as those emails came in, and then we exhaled together.

And now, after a four year long endurance test, after every trial, every triumph, every sleepless nigh and every sacred ten minute nap.

We are here.

The beauty in this moment is not just what we have accomplished.

It's in who we've become.

We are not the same people wh started in the summer of 2021.

We are wiser, stronger and refined in all the right ways.

As we go out into the world, let us carry the lessons, the laughter and the legacy of this class with us.

Let us represent MSU comm not just with knowledge, but with kindness, humility, and heart.

Because the truth is, we didn't just make it through medical school.

We became the kind of doctors medicine was waiting for.

Class of 2025.

You are brilliant, resilient and ready.

And most importantly, you are doctors.

May your heart stay open, your hands stay steady and your purpose never waver.

And one day, by some miracle, may your loans be forgiven.

Congratulations.

Thank you Rijul.

That was great.

It's now my profound honor to introduce our keynote speaker for nearly four decades.

Doctor Terrie Taylor has spen six months each year in Malawi working tirelessly to comba cerebral malaria among children.

She's here today, which is a little bit odd because dad.

Well, it's not odd, really, but but but it's ours now because normally she's in Malawi at this time.

But we were fortunate to have her back.

And her groundbreaking research has not only deepened our understandin of this devastating disease, but has saved countless young lives.

Beyond he scientific achievements, Doctor Taylor has mentored more than 700 students, offering them life changing experiences in global health and instilling in them the core principles of osteopathic medicine, empathy, holistic care and a deep, passionate commitment to service.

Today, as we celebrate your commencement, we're privileged to hear from a true pioneer whose life's work demonstrates the extraordinary impact one individual can make.

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to our very own Michigan State University Distinguished Professor, Doctor Terrie Taylor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm honore to be your commencement speaker.

Congratulations on your tremendous accomplishments.

This is the moment you've bee working toward this for years.

Studying hard practicing your clinical skills.

Positioning yourselves for opportunities.

Rehearsing for interviews.

Standing up and reentering the fray after setbacks and disappointments.

Making friendships that will last a lifetime.

Identifying and connecting with mentors who will also left in a lifetime.

You've earned this moment to sit back and savor your many accomplishments.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you all hav had a tremendous education here.

You are all well on your way to becoming highly skilled, compassionate, and trustworthy doctors.

As a scientist, I generally shy away from grandiose statements, but I am confident that your medical education was first rate.

How do I know that?

Because I've lived u close and personal with hundreds of MSU comm student in their final weeks and months.

Since 1987, in Malawi.

We've shared countless family dinners.

We've been through power cuts and water cuts.

We've cobbled together internet access for residency interviews and match day updates.

And I know based on listening to how they process their experiences at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, that they are astute clinicians and their empathy for the patients and the Malawian clinicians is off the charts.

This elective experience was the vision of our founding dean Mike Meighan, and he nailed it.

Not only does it widen horizons, it explodes them.

On the way from the airport.

The student, the slurred, their first word of Chinua ze Congo.

It is the single most useful word.

It means thank you.

But it can also stand in for.

Excuse me.

We're done now.

Or let's move along.

We have a tour of the sprawling hospital the day before they start.

And the critical piec of etiquette is how to behave.

If you see a body on a stretcher covered in a white cloth with a red cross coming down one of the many hallways.

Just stop.

Bow your head and let it pass on its way to the mortuary.

The elective is great for honing physical diagnosis skills.

The students see many famous opinions.

Humans sign Marcus gun, pupils chopstick sign, torso sign.

And they aren't just academic.

They're important for diagnosi in a setting which lacks nearly all the bells and whistles you're used to hear.

The walk to and from the hospital every da can also be highly entertaining.

There are incongruou pairings of people and the used clothing that shows up in the Blantyre market.

The best was a larg Malawian man whose T-shirt read I slept with Burt Reynolds.

The other half of Dean Mehgan's vision was to have a faculty member engaged in tropical disease research in a developing country.

Now, he would say global health research in a low and middle income country.

Through series of serendipitous events, I found myself in Malawi in 1987 poised to start a research project.

My esteemed colleague colleague was Malcolm Mullen.

You a Brit with ten years experience in Malawi under his belt?

The Malawi Ministry of Health had identified cerebral malaria in Malawi in children as their priority topic, and the sole pediatrician at Queen's at the time, a Dutch doctor, welcomed us into her department.

Dean Megan agreed on the spot.

Really to let me spend six months a year, January to June in Malawi.

This is the rainy season and so it's the period in which in which most children with cerebra malaria are admitted to Queen's.

It's also a great time for final year students to rotate, and it's a great time not to be in Michigan.

I quickly realized that I personally was up against a few obstacles in Malawi.

The Medical Council of Malawi had never heard of DOS, and so some education was required.

And then our degree was recognized.

Our nurses and actually most Malawians had had little experience with single women.

It's actually unheard of to be an unmarried woman in Malawi.

Was there a biological reason I wasn't married?

Was I divorced?

The nurses were overjoyed when I finally did get married in 2006.

And then in 2010, I was included in the Malawi National Census after a series of questions related to the water supply.

Was it indoors or out?

The composition of the roof?

Was it thatch or corrugated tin?

I was asked, what was your age at first marriage?

When I replied 51, the enumerator rolled her eyes and repeated the question, enunciating very directly.

No, I meant, how old were yo the first time you got married?

She was astonished when I stuck to my guns, but she was glad that she checked, because she was sure that her supervisor would query that outlier data point.

I was also under the gun as an American in a former British colony, especially an American woman in a field, tropical medicine dominated by British men.

When Malcolm and first started working together, we were bantering, as you do, about the differences between American English and British English.

I thought we were studying cerebral malaria.

Malcol thought it was cerebral malaria.

At the time the drug of choice was quinine, which Malcolm pronounced quinine.

Where we where we treating our patients according to a schedule or a schedule with normal saline or normal saline, where we measuring antibody titers or titers.

Eventually Malcolm laid down the linguistic law, saying, well, Terry, we could pronounce these words your way or we could pronounce them properly and.

I laughed.

I laughed at the time and I still laugh, but there actuall is a bit of the famous Iron Fist in the velvet glove.

There.

And I was tolerated for a long time as a quaint American.

But I did the work.

I saw the patients.

I analyzed the data.

I wrote the manuscripts and the grants, and eventually the work spoke for itself and the condescension diminished.

What was the work?

A series of studies on the pathogenesis of fatal cerebral malaria in Malawi and children.

This is a clinical syndrome carried by and convulsions, which affects a tiny minority of all those who are infected with the parasite.

Why do some go down this path and not others?

That's still an open question.

Once comatose and convulsing, these kids exhibit an entire neurologic textbook of pupillary changes, involuntary eye movements, respiratory patterns, abnormal postures, and vocalizations.

Incredibly and astonishingly, 80 to 85% of them recover within 2 to 3 days, with nothing more than I.V.

fluids and anti-malarial drugs and a few anticonvulsants and antibiotics and blood transfusions.

But the point is that the recovery is really fast.

What does tha what pathological process does that also 15 to 20% die.

And for me, that made this work compelling because so many children were dying of cerebral malaria every year and fascinating because the clinical picture was so unusual, the curiosity was consuming.

And that curiosity helped m overcome a variety of obstacles some pedestrian, some more scientific on the pedestrian line.

If you go on safari in sub-Saharan Africa, you're hoping to see the big five wild buffalo lion, elephant, leopard and rhino.

If you're livin and working in Malawi and trying to conduct clinical research, your life revolves around the big three water, electric, city and internet.

The science was always bumping up against capacity constraints in Malawi.

We wanted to do an autopsy study, but there was only one pathologist for the entire country, so we obtained Fogarty International Center funding to train another one, and we imported volunteer pathologists to support the study.

In the meantime.

The autopsy study was illuminating, but it didn't seal the deal.

And we realized that we needed neuroimaging.

Enter E James poaching the larger than life chair of radiology here at Michigan State.

He brokered the donation of a brand new MRI to us in Malawi that broke open our understanding of what was happening with the children who died.

Their brains were swollen beyond the capacity of the skull.

Our current question is why are the brains swollen?

And for that, we need input from intensive care physicians.

The through line here is that for curiosity to overcome challenges, we need collaboration.

In our case with pathologists, radiologists, and with intensivist.

In closing, I would like to reiterate the importance of several words starting with C compassionate clinical care.

It's part of your DNA.

Now.

Collaboration.

It's critica in terms of your effectiveness and curiosity.

It's the antidote to cynicism.

The common community.

Thank you very much for your attention.

And now go out and make the world a better place.

Thank you, Doctor Taylor, for sharin your incredible journey with us.

Your deep commitment to compassion, collaboration, and your curiosity is a powerful example of how one person could trul make the world a better place.

De Como con berry?

How do I do?

Okay, good.

All right.

before we move on, I do want to give a quick thank you to to Jodie, Noel and Doctor Linda Carnahan from Wkar who will be assisting us today.

And also, I want to thank the Lansing Concert Band conductor, Doctor Steve Sudduth and the and the band.

So thank you very much.

Let's give them a round of applause for this.

We are now going to turn to a tradition that marks your official transition into the medical profession.

The ceremonial hooding and awarding of your diploma.

The hooding ceremony is a time honored tradition marking the official transition from student to physician.

Rooted in medieval academia, the hood has has evolved from a simple garment into a symbol of knowledge, service, and achievement.

The green velvet trim represents the field of medicine, and the green and white lining pays homage to Michigan State University.

For our graduates, this moment is more than a tradition.

It signifies years of rigorous study.

The commitment to lifelon learning and the responsibility they now carry as physicians as they receive their hoods.

They join a long lineage o osteopathic physicians dedicated to healing, service and the highest standards of care.

I believe as we begin today's hearing ceremony, we proudly honor those who have serve in the United States military.

In recognition of their service to our nation, and with deep gratitude.

We're privileged to begin by hooding these distinct, distinguished graduates.

(Conferral of Degrees, Graduate Names and Hooding) Next, we honor graduates who are earning dual degrees today.

An extraordinary accomplishment that reflects exceptional dedication and perseverance.

(Conferral of Degrees, Graduate Names and Hooding) (Conferral of Degrees, Graduate Names and Hooding) Graduates, this is the moment you've been waiting for us.

On behalf of the president of Michigan State University, who has delegated to me the authority of the state of Michigan.

Vested in the Board of Trustees, I confer upon you the degree for which you have been recommended with all the rights, honors, and distinctions that come with it.

According to tradition, you may now move your tassels from the right to the left.

Congratulations, doctors.

You are now alumni of Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine.

At this time, I invite the vice presidents of the class of 2025.

Doctor Adriano.

Doctor Gigante, and Docto Mansour to come forward and lead their peers in the Osteopathic Pledge of Commitment.

I had the privilege of administering the pledge to them before the ceremony, and now they will do the same for you.

Good evening, fellow doctors.

We asked the class of 2025 to stand, and we invite all osteopathic physicians present to rise as we collectively recite the Osteopathic Pledge of Commitment, reaffirming our dedication to the principles and values of our profession.

This pledge is more than a tradition.

It is a lifelong promise, a promise to our patients, our communities, and ourselves to uphold the highest standards of healing and integrity.

As members of th osteopathic medical profession, we recall the tenants in which this profession is founded the dynamic interaction of the body, mind and spirit, the body's ability to heal itself, the primary rol of the musculoskeletal system, and preventive medicin as the key to maintain health.

We recognize the work our predecessors have accomplished in building this profession, and we commit ourselves to continuing that work.

Please raise your right hand and recite with us the Osteopathic Pledge.

I pledge to provid a compassionate, quality care to my patients, partner with them to promote health, display integrity and professionalism throughout my career.

Advanced the philosophy, practice, and science of osteopathic medicine.

Continue lifelong learning.

Support my profession with loyalty and action, word and deed, and live each day as an example of what a osteopathic physician should be.

Wow, what a day.

It's obvious why this is always my favorite day of the year.

This is amazing.

So earlier today, we had multiple outstanding graduates who were honored with awards at a special banquet.

Their names are displayed on the screen now, and we ask that they stand so we may recognize them for their achievement.

This.

Thank you.

You may be seated as you leave here and venture into the world.

As an osteopathic physician remember that you will always be part of the MSU com family.

You are now our alumni and I a proud to call you my colleague.

We share your commitment to excellence and service.

We can't wait to see the lives you will touch and the difference we know you will make.

Because Spartans have uncommon will for a far better world.

Congratulations and go green.

Go White.

(Music Playing) (MSU Fight Song)