Washington University
Commencement Speech
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May 10, 2002
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Read Christopher Reeve's
commencement speech at Washington University School of
Medicine in St. Louis, May 10,
2002 |
Dean Peck, members of the faculty, the administration
and most of all the graduating class. It’s a real privilege
for me to be here, and it’s also a chance for me to take this
opportunity to prove that I am still alive. And I’ll tell you
why. A couple of nights ago, I was at home and the phone rang,
and it was my publicist calling saying that there had been
calls from AP, UPI, Reuters, CBS, FOX, CNN, etc., etc.
reporting that I died. So… I’m just…for anybody here who
cares…I’d just like you to know I’m alive…thank you very much.
Thank you. What is kind of fascinating about the press is that
they didn’t take a name or phone number of whoever it was that
planted this rumor. We can’t figure out where it came
from…unless it was Senator Brownback’s office…but more about
that later. It’s very curious that the press wants a story but
they don’t really care about all of the reasons. They just
want to know, “Is there a story. Is he dead? Is he alive? Is
he dead? Is he alive? Is it worth sending a truck? Okay never
mind.” Just sort of interesting how the press
works. I’m glad to be here because I have a
special, really a reverence for doctors that I never thought I
would have. I’ve also, in the last seven years, seen many more
doctors of various descriptions than I ever thought I would in
my life. All of them have been just incredible. Beginning with
the great neurosurgeon of Virginia who literally saved my
life. He performed an amazing surgery reattaching my head to
the top of my spinal column. He had to because the C1 had been
totally demolished – an absolutely amazing, groundbreaking
operation. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here talking
to you today. Also, we have doctors in our family. I remember
when my sister in law, Deborah, was going through med school.
We were all very excited because we thought with this, once
she graduates and does her residency, there will be free
medical care. She’s going to be perhaps a pediatrician. That
would be great or maybe an internist. That’d be fine too. And
then she decided to be a pathologist. And I said I don’t want
to see her. Don’t let me come your way. The whole range of
what all the doctors, the nurses, all the people who have come
into my life, have given me just a new appreciation for what
it is that you do. And today marks an amazing day in your
life. When I think about the dedication, the sacrifice, the
hard work, the years and years that it took you to get to
today. The sacrifices your families made. The loans, you know,
that you’re going to be trying to pay off for years. You know,
it’s just something that as a patient, you know I sit here,
and I’m often very frustrated b/c politics gets in the way of
advancing medical science in this country as quickly as it
could go. I go, ‘Why? Why? Why do we have to make research,
science, medicine, the best care for patients, why do we have
to make that political? Why do we have to base it on the
bottom line for companies? Where is the idealism that should
form medicine? It is right here in this room with all of you
who are about to graduate, and I just salute you for that b/c
your idealism about becoming doctors that is what gives me
hope because I know that you’re not in this for the money.
That’s not going to happen. Not in this day and age. Maybe
before the 80s, before HMOS, but not anymore. And that is
great. The fact that you would make the sacrifice of so much
time, so much of your personal lives and go through this just
because of your compassion for your fellow human beings. That
means more to me than you will ever know. And one thing that
you should really try to hold on to for as long as you
possibly can is the idealism that I think you really feel in
your hearts today. The fact that you’ve gone through college,
gone through med school, and you’re going to go onto a match
up someplace to be an intern and work 100 hours a week. Be on
call 24 hours a day. Make almost nothing. You’re going to go
through all of that. And then finally end up in a career that
will be your life’s calling. And along the way it may be easy
to become jaded or to become very frustrated by the way that
the system works. And I urge you to hang on to the feelings
that you have today about what you’ve accomplished and what
your role in our society can be b/c you’re doing the right
thing and there are a lot of people in our society who aren’t
doing the right thing. And I believe that for us to go forward
as a society right now there’s a big crisis. There’s a crisis
of confidence, a crisis of honesty a crisis of doing the right
thing.
I
don’t want to turn this into a political forum, but I do have
to ask questions that are very troubling. I’m just going to
give you one as an example. As you know, in the 1970s,
American scientists were working on in vitro fertilization,
but the buzz word, “test tube babies,’ got around and there
was a conservative backlash that caused the government to stop
NIH research until an advisory commission could be formed to
study ethics. In the meantime, over in England, they
proceeded, and in 1978 the first test tube baby was born not
in America but in England. And then finally following suit and
seeing that it was accepted practice in other countries the
first American test tube baby was born in 1981. Today there
are 400 infertility clinics in the country and 178,000
Americans walking around who were conceived in a test tube and
it’s totally routine practice.
So my problem is that what we fear today may very well
become commonplace tomorrow. And in the case of in vitro
fertilization, it wasn’t that serious b/c we weren’t talking
about life or death but the whole issue of where we’re going
with research is life and death. For example, Senator
Brownback of Kansas has introduced a bill to be voted on in
the next 10 days, which would not only ban all forms of
cloning but actually criminalize it. So I could go to the UK,
and I could come back walking and be arrested in the airport.
That’s absurd…just absolutely absurd. I follow very closely
what he has said on the subject and he was asked by Senator
Harkin in a hearing, “What do you think about in vitro
fertilization clinics?’ And he said, “I have no problem with
them. Many of my friends have had fine children that way. It’s
fine by me.’ Senator Harkin said, ‘You’re aware, of course,
that at least a third or maybe more of the excess fertilized
embryos from these clinics are routinely thrown in the
garbage. They’re thrown away.’ Senator Brownback said, ‘I
believe a great majority of them are put up for adoption.’
Well, let me tell you something. First of all, just in the
state of Kansas, there’s a no adoption policy. And in
the last 21 years, only 100 fertilized embryos have been
adopted by another couple. And yet, Senator Brownback is
forming legislation that describes the little cluster of cells
that is an unfertilized egg, just the zygotes, that would have
its nucleus removed and then the DNA from the patient put in
the process of somatic cell transfer. He calls that little
clump of cells an individual. So I have a big problem with
that because therapeutic cloning is still in its infancy, but
it has such promise. Not to encourage that research
responsibly may result in a lot of people dying unnecessarily
and keep a lot of people in wheelchairs longer than they need
to. And countries all around the world are grappling with the
issue and deciding that the purpose of government is to do the
greatest good for the greatest number of people, and that you
can regulate cloning, ban reproductive cloning and live up to
our obligation to provide the best medical technology to our
citizens. So sitting here as a patient when you have a
legislature who doesn’t’ know or turns a blind eye to the
destruction of fertilized embryos, that says that a clump of
cells is an individual, I really have a problem with that. I
really have a problem. And the reason I bring this up is
because I’m struggling to keep up my hope and the hope for
patients like me and almost any other disease that you can
think of.
I
originally thought that progress would depend on money and
bringing enough scientists into the field, particularly in the
case of neuroscience to advance spinal cord repair. I thought
that was going to be the issue, but it’s not. We do have
money. The NIH budget next year will be 27.2 billion dollars.
When I was injured the budget was 12 billion dollars. And yet,
we still have a problem because even though scientists are
pouring into the field, their hands are tied by government
policy and by the long delay in dealing with stem cells and
therapeutic cloning, and frankly, we don’t have the time to
wait. We just don’t have the time to wait. The more people who
come into the field with the mission of doing the best for
their patients and realizing that religion is not to be
confused with government policy, that it doesn’t’ belong in
the middle of government policy… It’s tough b/c it has sort of
turned out that way in this country. But we have to change
that, and we have to let scientists speak about science. And
we have to let scientists advance the most groundbreaking
technology that will help their fellow citizens. And so my
hope is that all of you, whatever your political persuasions
are, whatever your religious persuasions are, whatever your
own personal feelings are, again, that idealism that you have
today about service, about what medicine means, about what you
can do, please don’t lose that. Please don’t lose that in the
middle of your path as you go on in life because we need pure
medicine. We need the best medicine. We need ethical behavior,
ethical conduct but doctors are ethical. Their conduct is
monitored. I believe in doctors. I have the greatest
admiration and reverence for doctors. Now we’ve just got to
get out of the way and let you guys do your work. Thank you so
much for being willing to take the journey that you’re taking
and for doing that work. I applaud each and every one of you
and thank you for making it and if there’s anything that I can
ever do to help, or if you guys ever want to be in touch to
talk about issues, I can always be reached at the Christopher
Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
I’m going to say one thing that will probably get me
kicked out of here, and then I’ll leave anyway. It seems to me
that there are a lot of old traditions that are worth keeping.
They are in every field. Certainly in the military, there are
rites of passage. There are traditions that you have to go
through that are very, very difficult. And the reason they’re
there is when you get passed them, you have earned your right
to go up the next step. However, from my own experience in
intensive care, I’m not really happy to see a resident come in
who hasn’t slept in three days. So I think just b/c it’s been
done for years and years and years, that we could change that
too. Because if you guys are well rested, if you guys had, you
know, shorter rotations and stuff, you could concentrate and
it’d be better for us. Because whenever an intern with no
sleep is giving me a medication, I want him to check it twice,
but I don’t’ know why you have to be put through that
particular hardship. I think that it could be eased up
and it would be something that, you know, just the system
might think about. Probably nothing will happen, but I just
toss it out there because I’m that kind of person. Thank you
very much. Congratulations.
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