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| June 2015 |
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Graduation 2015
Loma Linda University will graduate 1,569 students this commencement season from its doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s, associate, and a few certificate programs. I will have the privilege of shaking hands with most of them. I look into their eyes as they greet their dean and me and often wonder — where will this graduate be in five years, 10, or 20? What kind of world are they entering? What will happen to health care? Hospitals? Costs? Insurance coverage? New techniques and treatments? Lifestyle and behaviors? Reimbursement strategies?
Our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some are looking for a way up and out of the poverty and turmoil of their past. Others are looking to give back and actively seek out difficult working environments, here and abroad, as part of living their dream of service. These two groups have been rubbing elbows with each other in the classrooms and clinics, developing unlikely friendships that often survive great differences. Watching them support, hug, and cry with each other as they part is a moving scene each graduation season. The number of graduates by discipline is an interesting reflection on the changing interests and perceived market needs for each area of health care. Our major four-year doctoral programs continue to be very desirable. On May 24, the School of Pharmacy graduated 78 doctors of pharmacy, the School of Dentistry 120 doctors of dental surgery, and Medicine 173 physicians. We continue to have about 10 percent of our student body come from some 90 different countries. They bring a rich diversity to the classroom discussions and campus activities. We value the exposure their presence gives to our other students who better understand a global perspective and the cultural differences that often separate us. Finally, another group is “graduating” that often slips off quietly with hardly anyone noticing. There are over 200 physicians each July who have finished their medical residencies in various specialties, usually of three to five years in length, and start into practice. We have about 700 of these residents in our Loma Linda University Health network each year, gaining the necessary skills and certifications to be specialists as pediatricians, surgeons, internists and radiologists, just to name a few. This training is the crucial final step in preparing a graduate physician, as no one can go out as a “general practitioner” anymore. These residents have graduated from medical school at Loma Linda or elsewhere across the country, and applied to do their specialty training at Loma Linda University Health. We consider them alumni as well as our regular graduates and are proud of their accomplishments.
Cordially yours, Richard Hart, MD, DrPH 2015 graduates by school
Degrees conferred in 2015
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June 11, 2015
Notes from the President -- June 2015
Another set of questions quickly follows. Have we prepared them well? Have they realistically thought about what is out there? Do they have the professional knowledge and skills, along with the values and character to see them through? While I have full confidence in our faculty and curricula, there is much more at stake here than just the students’ academic preparation. Change keeps coming faster and faster, with often unintended consequences. Resiliency becomes an essential. Mistakes will be made. Are our grads ready to get back up and move on?
The School of Medicine also graduated 37 from the master’s and PhD programs in the basic sciences. The physical therapy doctoral program (DPT) will graduate 111 on June 14. Fully three-fourths of our students are in master’s and doctoral programs, with the balance studying for bachelor’s degrees and in associate degree programs in such areas as nursing, dental hygiene, and those offered by the School of Allied Health Professions. Below are two tables that show the different degrees students are receiving and the number of graduates by school for this year. The disparity between the totals is due to a few students receiving dual degrees.
In closing, I want to give an update on our planned campus in San Bernardino. The walls are going up! We are delighted with the steady progress on this facility, which remains on budget and on target to open early next summer. Besides providing valuable clinical services to the community, it will also provide a unique educational milieu, where high school grads earning certificates, professional students earning degrees, and residents gaining specialty certification will work side by side, teaching each other. Our hope and expectation is that the training will extend in all directions among these groups, as different perspectives and cultures are explored and understood. You can watch progress on the live webcam at 
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