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REMARKS BY: TOMMY G. THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES PLACE: Pritzer School of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois DATE: June 8, 2001
Dean Weir, members of the Board of Trustees, members of the faculty and administrative staff, ladies and gentlemen, and especially the graduates:
As many of you know, I was born and raised in Wisconsin, and am proud of all things associated with your neighbor to the north. And you should know that I'm here today even though the Chicago Maroons beat the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in the NCAA Division Three basketball tournament in March. You advanced. The Blugolds of Eau Claire did not.
But I'm happy to note that our universities have a shared history - the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin were two of the seven original schools that met in 1895 to form the Big Ten conference. The University of Chicago won the first three baseball titles, and the U.W. won the first two football championships.
Before leaving the Big Ten in 1946, you beat us in football two out of the last three times we played. I'm here today to tell you we don't forget easily in Wisconsin. But it's time to put any lingering bad blood behind us.
Let me begin by saying congratulations. You have done it; you have stayed the course, endured the incredibly long hours and studied almost beyond human capacity. Now you can go on to the restfulness of your residencies.
Let me also pay tribute to your parents and loved ones, whose patience, support and generosity have paved the way to this wonderful day. Moms and dads, spouses and children, you have good reason to be very proud.
The University of Chicago has one of the most remarkable histories of any university. The school is home to 73 Nobel laureates, including 49 in physics, medicine or physiology. That's an ongoing legacy which I know you, as graduates, will help carry forward.
You, the graduates of the Division of Biological Sciences of the class of 2001, have been trained at one of the leading medical institutions in the nation. A number of you are receiving PhDs in biological science. And many of you who have been trained as physicians have gone beyond the intensity of your medical studies. I was impressed to learn that 30 percent of you are receiving an advanced degree in addition to your M.D.
At first I was tempted to question your sanity. But in an era when knowledge is the most important commodity we have, that's good judgment and I applaud it. In the words of the 19th century physician John Shaw Billings, "The education of the doctor which goes on after he has his degree is, after all, the most important part of his education." If that was true in the 19th century, it's far more so today.
You have been trained not only as skilled practitioners of an honored profession. Your training has been more than a long sequence of intellectual challenge. Your coursework here at the Pritzker School has prepared you to serve to answer a call. Your call is to be with those who suffer. You will help heal the ill and disease-ridden . mend broken bodies . touch wounded spirits.
That word - calling - defines what the past several years have really been about and what the next several decades of your lives will be. Yours is more than a profession, it is a gift. Because you have been given much, from you much will be required.
Those requirements will be high because of the remarkable era in which we live. Thomas Jefferson envisioned our era two centuries ago. President Jefferson, who knew a thing or two about learning, foresaw an America that would be built, in his words, into an "empire of science." President Jefferson's vision has become a reality beyond his wildest dreams.
The achievements of scientific research in our time would astound President Jefferson were he alive even as they astound us. From molecular research to the mapping of the human genome, the empire of science stretches broadly into every aspect of our lives.
The empire of science has been extended by the physicians who came before you, men and women who have eradicated smallpox, eliminated polio in many regions and improved the lives of countless infants and children through better nutrition and better prenatal care.
That's where you come in. That this is the most exciting era to practice medicine in human history is not graduation day hype, that's a fact. This new era will continue advancing only as far as physicians like you are will to take it. Be bold, don't take risks with your patients, but do ask questions . explore new therapies . keep pouring over the latest research and the most current literature.
At the same time, your boldness must be tempered by humility, by the knowledge that you are dealing with the most sacred thing on this planet: human life. People are more than clinical subjects. I know you know that, and will practice medicine accordingly. But let me urge you to keep that understanding always in the forefront of your minds.
Dr. Lois DeBakey put it this way: "An inquiring, analytical mind . an unquenchable thirst for new knowledge . and a heartfelt compassion for the ailing - these are prominent traits (of) the committed clinicians who have preserved the passion for medicine."
Dr. DeBakey understood why she was a physician. So do each of you. My charge is, in this time of tremendous change and opportunity, don't forget. Keep the needs of the patient in the forefront of your minds. And keep your minds open to new possibilities for better treatment and prevention.
At the Department of Health and Human Services, we're mindful of those possibilities. For example, we're on the leading edge of some significant cancer breakthroughs. That's especially meaningful here at the Pritzker School, which is one of only two medical programs in Illinois that the National Cancer Institute has designated an official cancer center.
The National Cancer Institute is making the most dynamic progress in history when it comes to cancer treatment. Ten years ago, there were 40 cancer drugs in clinical trials. Today, there are 470 and that number is expected to double in the next five years.
Those clinical trials are bearing some amazing fruit. Last month, HHS announced that a new drug called Gleevec has been approved for use in the cases of people with chronic myeloid leukemia, or CML.
Gleevec marks the wave of the future because it is the first cancer drug that is the product of molecular targeting: the groundbreaking ability to deliver a drug directly to the diseased cells, leaving the healthy cells alone. Gleevec targets a single cancer-causing protein and, like a light switch, turns off its signal to produce leukemia cells.
But Gleevec underscores a much broader and profoundly revolutionary trend. Our whole approach to cancer is being transformed.
For the past 100 years, we looked at cancer cells under microscopes and tried to figure out what we could about them. Today, we're decoding not only cancer but all diseases by their molecular structure. This is a radical about-face in the treatment of disease.
Let me give you just one example of how this new approach is changing the face of disease diagnosis and treatment. There is a type of cancer I know you are all familiar with called Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Pathologists have long argued about how to classify it, since they knew that it really consisted of a number of diseases.
Over the past two years, the National Cancer Institute has created a chip that can read all of the genes in any lymphoma sample. As a result, we've discovered two distinct lymphatic cancers that previously had been lumped together.
This explains why only about half of the patients treated for these kinds of lymphomas were cured, because even though they had different types of lymphoma, the treatments they were given affected one disease but not the other. We just hadn't understood that there were actually two diseases, not one.
This kind of scientific advancement typifies the new medical horizon before us. That horizon extends to preventive medicine, as well. And to keep that horizon extending even further, we need to encourage greater preventive measures on the front end and thereby discourage painful and costly treatments at the back end.
Vaccinations are one means of prevention. But as important as vaccinations are, preventive medicine has to mean preventive behaviors. For example, we're facing an epidemic of obesity in our country. In children, particularly, we're seeing the impact of obesity in a very troubling manner.
Twenty years ago, when your professors were sitting where you are sitting today, what was then called "adult onset diabetes" occurred in mature men and women for a variety of factors. It's now called "Type Two" diabetes, and it's no longer confined to adults. It's occurring in children - children who are overweight and who get little exercise. So many of these cases could be prevented if our children ate healthier and exercised more.
Similarly, we now know that young people have a much lower tolerance to the effects of smoking than adults. Recent research has found that as little as two cigarettes a month, two per month, can cause nicotine addiction in teenagers. This is an even greater incentive to keep cigarettes out of the hands of children.
These advancements in our clinical knowledge must animate a deeper commitment to preventive care. And we now have a remarkable new set of tools to prevent asthma, allergies and diabetes.
Preventive medicine is a passion of mine and a high priority for HHS. But I have to ask you to join us, to become disciples of preventive medicine. We need the medical community to continue to aggressively encourage behaviors that will foster good health.
But there's another step you can take that's critically important. In your role as physicians, you treat the ill so that they might become well. But some will only become well if they have new hearts, new kidneys or other organs to replace their own.
In April, I announced a new national organ donor initiative to encourage men and women throughout the country to become organ, blood, marrow and tissue donors.
I did this for a very simple reason: the lives of thousands of Americans depend on it every year. We have developed a model donor card and also will develop a model curriculum for states to use to teach about organ donation in driver education classes. This initiative is based on a Wisconsin law that was inspired by a Wisconsin citizen, Kelly Nachreiner, a 16-year-old girl who lost her life in a tragic car crash but had heroically decided to donate her organs.
Let me ask you to join us. Sign your own donor card, if you haven't, and ask your patients to sign cards themselves and reassure them, when necessary, that signing a card won't make them vulnerable to mistreatment. You want your patients to live, to thrive. But in the event of their deaths, they can give life to another person, someone who is suffering and in pain.
Our increasing ability to transplant delicate organs is one of the amazing developments of our time. But even as the horizon is filled with new treatments and new technologies, so the landscape before it is clotted with reams of paper, bundles of rules and heaps of regulations. That frustrates me even as I know it aggravates the medical profession. Physicians were not called to be file clerks or accountants or to have their time and resources drained away as they fill out form after form.
So, at the Department of Health and Human Services, we're forming a new regulatory reform group that will look for regulatory problems that prevent physicians and other health care providers from helping people in the most effective way possible. This group will determine what rules need to be better explained, what rules need to be streamlined and what rules need to be cut altogether.
The good news is that despite excessive regulations, new technologies afford us the hope of reducing the paperwork burden as it exists today. The growing movement toward a "paperless" medical environment encourages that hope. More extensive use of computers, for the entry of prescriptions and medical records, are helping us keep track of patients' histories with electrons rather than with paper and ink.
But even as government plays its appropriate role and technology keeps advancing, your central mission remains unchanged. The writer James Bryce called medicine "the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its existence." He was right; you're fighting to end the suffering that characterizes too many lives. And in many ways, that's my job at HHS, as well.
But the fight to end suffering won't happen in our lifetimes. Your commodity will remain the art of healing, even as your forum is the arena of pain. But please don't accept the inevitability of pain as a pretext for anything less than the utmost diligence or the deepest compassion. As I said earlier, be bold and be humble.
And, please, in order to keep your edge as physicians, have lives outside of the clinic or hospital where you practice.
Consider the example of one of the University of Chicago's most esteemed professors, Dr. Roger Sperry. In 1981, Dr. Sperry won the Nobel Prize for his research on the human brain.
His list of honors and awards is astounding, it would just about take another speech to do them justice. But in his brief autobiography, Dr. Sperry lists what he calls his "anti-brain" activities: sculpture, ceramics, drawing, sports, folk dance, boating, snorkeling and even collecting fossils and he probably rooted for the Cubs, too. I feel kind of exhausted just listing all his hobbies. But they kept Dr. Sperry fresh.
Each of us needs those kinds of outlets, those kinds of productive diversions. Combined with the richness that comes from family life and sustaining friendships, they help us keep our heads and hearts in the right place for the long term.
You have been prepared to fulfill your calling by this wonderful institution, one that your founder, John D. Rockefeller, called "the best investment I ever made." Like Mr. Rockefeller, your time and, yes, your money spent here at the University of Chicago has been invested wisely. Your investment will pay off richly not only in professional terms but, more importantly, in the lives of the people you touch.
As you pursue your calling, and as you act with boldness and humility, always remember that the true focus of every physician must be the healing of bodies, the mending of hearts and the restoration of lives. There can be few more noble callings nor many more urgent needs. I thank you for answering the call and for committing your lives to meet the needs.
Please accept my very best regards as you begin the next chapter in your lives. I know each of you will write that chapter well.
Thank you very much.
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