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Harvard Public Health NOW

June 12, 2009

Importance of Public Health Celebrated at HSPH Graduation

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Visit this site for
  • archived webcasts of the morning and afternoon ceremonies,
  • transcripts,
  • and a photo gallery.
Public health is at the threshold of a new era, said Dean Julio Frenk at the HSPH Commencement Ceremony on June 4, 2009. The landscape of public health has changed radically, he said. It is now fundamentally global, and there is an increasing emphasis on integration — across disciplines and levels of analysis from gene to globe.

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Dean Frenk (left) with Commencement speaker Dr. Atul Gawande

The ceremony was held before an overflowing audience of graduates, faculty, alumni, and their friends and families in the Kresge courtyard. 

HSPH granted degrees to 491 students: 16 Doctors of Philosophy, two Doctors of Public Health, 54 Doctors of Science, 13 Masters of Arts, 278 Masters of Public Health, and 128 Masters of Science. Sixty countries, 39 states, and Puerto Rico were represented. Six out of every 10 members of the Class of 2009 are women.

“Global” is not the opposite of “domestic,” said Dean Frenk. Global refers to processes that affect every population in the world through our growing interdependence. While we pursue the highest standards of academic rigor, we must at the same time provide solutions to the most pressing health challenges. He added that public health is increasingly focused on shaping the future. 

As this year’s graduates carry forth the School’s mission in their own careers, Dean Frenk said that this next generation of public health leaders must focus on turning knowledge into evidence that can guide practice.

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Hope O'Brien was the student speaker.

“Knowledge — the fundamental product of universities — is truly the most potent lever to improve our world,” said Dean Frenk. “With an evidence base and an ethical underpinning, public health interventions are a powerful force for enlightened social transformation.”

The Commencement address was delivered by acclaimed author Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s hospital and an associate professor at HSPH. Gawande said that he wanted to explain to the friends and families gathered under the Commencement tent why a public health degree is important and why no one is better equipped than these graduates to address the fundamental question: “How do we live as mortal beings?” Much has been learned about health and the human body in the previous century, he said. But now society faces a new problem: “How to actually deliver on all that has been learned.” 

Gawande described how different health care systems struggle with increasingly complex problems. He recounted visiting a hospital in his ancestral village in India, where he saw the heroic efforts of a few surgeons to accommodate the needs of rooms packed with patients, even giving patients chemotherapy — work typically overseen by an oncologist. The life expectancy in India is rising, and the number one killer in the country is now cardiovascular disease, “but they have a health system that was built for infectious disease.” 

He also described a case in Boston of a woman with a complex set of medical problems that arose because she didn’t get the preventive care she needed. Though a team of specialists went to great lengths to treat her, in the end she died of a simple pneumonia infection. “We too were struggling with a system that is failing our people,” Gawande said. Those working in public health, he said, will be the ones providing solutions to these failures.

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Students react to Dr. Gawande's speech.

“The needs of our world have shifted in ways that alter our conception of public health,” said Gawande. “There’s been an explosion of complex needs like these as much of the world’s population live past infectious disease. And so, consider my field of surgery. We now have 230 million people a year undergoing major surgery in the world. The volume now exceeds that of childbirth, but with death rates 10 to 100 times higher. And, on the other hand, we still have 2 billion people without access to essential surgery for endangered childbirth, for traumas, for other kinds of emergencies. If we are to save lives and use health resources wisely, we have to think about our health systems in all their dimensions – how they cope with everything from malaria to surgery.  For we’ve generated tremendous scientific knowledge, but not the capacity to deliver on it reliably, safely, humanely, or equitably. Closing this gap is the work of public health. It has become the pivotal struggle of our era.”

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Headbands representing exercise were thrown by the students at the Morning Ceremony.

Hope O’Brien, the student speaker, said that she defines public health as “a more just and healthy future.” The path to that future may involve a host of different strategies depending on the location and needs of a community, from clean water to a campaign to remind people to wear seat belts, or universal health insurance. 

Alumni speaker Royce Moser, Jr., who served in the Air Force and is now involved in disaster response planning and health and safety programs at the University of Utah, emphasized the breadth of opportunities available to those with a public health degree.

Several students and faculty members received awards, including the newly created James H. Ware award in honor of the current Dean for Academic Affairs, who is stepping down this year. The student award recipients were recognized for several impressive achievements, including working with homeless and at-risk youth, helping young people with HIV to advocate for themselves, and promoting quality of surgical care in Pakistan. For a full listing of student and faculty award winners, see HSPH Awards elsewhere in this issue.

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Students gathered in the Kresge Building before the ceremony.

“This will be a very special class for me, my first commencement as dean,” Frenk said in his closing remarks. He asked graduates to take a moment to look around at their neighbors: “You may be sitting beside a future minister of health or someone who will discover or develop a solution to a centuries-old disease.” Finally, he urged the graduates to consider the School a place to which they can always return for consultation, support, and fellowship.


--Courtney Humphries.  Photos by Suzanne Camarata and Kent Dayton