Dean Carmen A. Puliafito

Below is a transcript of Dean Puliafito’s remarks.

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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to commencement. Since this is my first commencement since my appointment as dean last November, this is a special occasion for me.

To be a physician is a noble calling. Becoming a physician requires extraordinary commitment and hard work. But it requires something else as well: the help of family and friends who were willing to support the dreams of these graduates becoming a doctor and helping others. We are here to celebrate your achievements, but we are here for something just as special: to offer our profound thanks to those who supported this quest. So, on behalf of these graduates, and the many thousands of patients who will benefit from their careers, I offer my deepest thanks to the family and friends of our graduates – the people who really made today possible. Graduates, please join me in a round of applause for your many supporters here assembled.

Some of you may know that I am a stamp collector. This past April, the German Postal Service marked the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman responsible for saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. Of course, many of you are familiar with Oskar Schindler’s story because of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Academy Award-winning film Schindler’s List. Schindler was a factory owner and a member of the Nazi party. He was not a particularly virtuous man; he loved money and he loved to party. But in the most difficult of circumstances, in the midst of the greatest horror of the twentieth century, he became a hero. Indeed, a legendary hero. He risked everything – his life and his fortune – to shield his workers, the men and women on his famous list, from the Nazi killing machine. An opportunist, he used his legendary charm and ingratiating manner to protect his employees. In the end, no one really knows what Schindler’s motives were. However, he was quoted as saying after the war: “I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave toward them like human beings.”

I pray that the members of the class of 2008 will never have to display heroism in the dire circumstances that confronted Oskar Schindler.

But I would like to remind you that heroism is an integral part of the medical tradition. The first physician of the Western tradition, Asclepius, was a hero described by Homer. In fact, Asclepius was the only Homeric hero in the Illiad and Odyssey who was not a warrior or an aristocrat. He was recognized as a hero because of his commitment to heal the rich and poor alike. As successors to Asclepius, I ask our graduates to remember this fact.

Our patients expect us to be heroes. As a young child wrote about her doctor: “A hero goes out of his way for someone. A hero is willing to take a risk. A hero works hard to use a special gift or skill to help others. A hero works very hard to keep others alive.”

Every day of your professional life, whatever your specialty, you will have the opportunity to be a hero. You will encounter patients and their families (never forget about the families) at the most difficult moments in their lives – as they confront mental illness, or cancer, or blindness, or some incalculable loss. They will be utterly dependent upon your talent and compassion. You cannot let them down.

Many of you will work in a world of suburban comfort. But you will also have opportunity to display medical heroism in more difficult circumstances – in a clinic on skid row, on the battlefield, in a prison, or on the scene of a natural disaster like a cyclone or an earthquake. Remember you trained at USC and at the county hospital, so you are exceptionally familiar with the diversity of human suffering and have a real commitment to doing whatever it takes to relieve that suffering.

Finally, I need not remind you that you will enter a world of healthcare delivery, which is characterized by great inequality. Healthcare is expensive, and many patients do not have the means or even the knowledge to get the help that they need. I urge you to be heroes to these patients as well: treat them without charge if you need to, and help them navigate a very complicated and sometimes very unfriendly healthcare system. Give them a break.

You became physicians because you wanted to help others and to make a difference. At end of the war, Schindler’s workers gave him a gold ring. The German Postal Service felt compelled to print these words on a postal stamp. The inscription on that ring is a very fitting reminder of what being a doctor is all about. I will close with the words inscribed on that ring and I ask the graduates to remember them. “He who saves one life it is as if he has saved the entire world.” Good luck and God speed.