On a day when expressions of gratitude for mentors and loved ones are commonplace, those awaiting their degrees at UConn Health’s commencement were advised to be thankful for someone else.

The suggestion came from Abraham Aron, student commencement speaker for the UConn School of Medicine Class of 2015.

“Every great discovery, every piece of data, every figure and table in a textbook is compilation of the journey of patients that we have never met,” Aron told the crowd at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. “The basis of the knowledge that we leave here with today is thanks to their collective experiences and unfortunate suffering. Thanks to their sacrifice, all of us in this room have benefitted.”

Aron, who heads next to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for a residency in internal medicine, left his 91 fellow graduating medical students and 44 graduates from the UConn School of Dental Medicine with this charge:

“We are the new generation of doctors. Every friend, every family member of a person suffering from an incurable disease now looks to us to find answers. Society has charged us with this sacred responsibility.”

In her commencement address as class speaker for the UConn Health Graduate School, Megan Miller urged the graduates to move forward with purpose and integrity.

“We leave here more prepared for whatever the future holds today than when we started this journey,” said Miller, who defended her thesis earlier this year and is doing postdoctoral work at Yale University.

Her Ph.D. is in biomedical science, with a concentration in neuroscience. Hers was one of 64 degrees conferred by the UConn Health Graduate School. Eight of them received a combined M.D./MPH degree.

Commencement speaker Anne Tanner, world-renowned scholar and researcher in dentistry and microbiology, also offered a forward-looking message:

“Follow your dream, even if it takes you through the rough patches,” Tanner said. “Whatever road you’ve taken here, it ain’t nothing compared to what’s ahead.”

Tanner, who has two oral bacteria named for her, is a senior member of the staff at the Forsyth Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and associate clinical professor of oral medicine, infection and immunity at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. UConn conferred her with an honorary doctor of science.

The people who make up students’ support system still did get their due. Tanner also made a point of saying, “Thank your professors, thank your parents.”

And dental class speaker Christopher Gibson believes it was the people that made his education at UConn Health so special.

“We are tremendously fortunate to be in the position we’re in,” Gibson said. “It would not be possible without the love and support of family, friends, faculty and classmates. I truly hope that we all make a concerted effort to maintain those relationships that we have formed.”

Gibson is on his way to New York City for a pediatric dentistry residency at Columbia University.

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