Departments
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Week of 18 September 1998 |
Vol. II, No. 6 |
Feature
Article
BUSM sesquicentennial
Surgeon general to speak at uncommon convocation
by Eric McHenry
The doctor is in. U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher will deliver the keynote address at a convocation honoring the BU School of Medicine's sesquicentennial on Friday, September 18. Satcher, along with American Association of Medical Colleges President Jordan Cohen and three distinguished BUSM alumni, will receive honorary degrees at the event. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be presented with a special sesquicentennial gold medallion.
It will be the largest academic ceremony held on the BU Medical Campus in recent memory, says Provost and BUSM Dean Aram Chobanian. "It's been a rare instance where we've had a convocation at the medical school. The last one was 25 years ago." Beginning at 2 p.m., the event will take place in a tent that will be set up across Albany Street from the Talbot Building. BU Medical Center faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.
Chobanian says that Satcher, who earlier this year was confirmed by Congress to the surgeon general's post, often speaks about such themes as global health and the importance of unrestricted access to high-quality health care. He also emphasizes the preventive aspects of care, having worked most recently as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During his tenure in that position, child immunization rates in the United States rose from 55 to 78 percent.
Cohen is another worthy candidate for an honorary degree, Chobanian says, citing a lengthy curriculum vitae of contributions to the world of medicine.
"He has been a terrific spokesman for academic medicine as it relates to a wide variety of issues," says Chobanian, "including research funding, funding for medical education, and federal funding for both residency and medical school training. He's been an excellent writer on major issues in medicine. He has also had a distinguished career as a clinical and bench scientist in the area of kidney diseases, and is the former dean of a medical school. So he really is an eminent statesman."
Menino was instrumental in the 1995 merger of the BU Medical Center Hospital and Boston City Hospital. He will be recognized for his "support of health care for all in Boston," Chobanian says.
Two of the three honorary degree recipients have previously been honored with Distinguished Alumni Awards from Boston University: Mary Jane England (MED'64), who heads the Washington Business Group on Health, is the immediate past president of the American Psychiatric Association. Ralph D. Feigin (MED'62) was recently appointed president of Baylor College of Medicine.
The third alumna recipient, Rachel Boone Keith (MED'49), is "a physician who has dedicated her life to the care of patients in the inner city of Detroit," Chobanian says. "We became aware of her because we were hunting up material on a story that Look magazine did in 1949, in which they highlighted three of our students who were providing home medical service. She was one of them, and we decided to try to find her." In the ensuing search, BUSM representatives learned not only of Keith's whereabouts but of her estimable lifetime of service.
The convocation is part of a yearlong series of occasions celebrating BUSM's 150th anniversary. A Sesquicentennial Gala at the Boston Copley Marriott Hotel is scheduled for Saturday, October 10. For more information about this and other BUSM sesquicentennial events, call 617-638-5300 or e-mail preich@bu.edu.