It is my pleasure
to now introduce the next Harvard Medical School
2023 speaker, Leen Al Kassab. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] For those of you who have
not seen her featured on Harvard's Instagram
feed, you may remember her as Cannon's birthday
baker or more infamously as the perpetrator of the
Vandy 2019 kitchen fire. [LAUGHTER] Believe me when I say I
was not amused at the time. I still remember standing in
the freezing cold when it was negative 10 degrees outside. But honestly, you can't
ever be that mad at Leen. She's one of the kindest
people you will ever meet, and I'm grateful to
call her a close friend. Leen is a member of the Pathways
MD entering class of 2018, taking a fifth
year for research, graduating today with
the class of 2023. Leen is originally from
Damascus, Syria, and Sidon, Lebanon, by way of Dubai,
UAE, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She moved to the US and
graduated from Harvard College in 2018 having studied
molecular and cellular biology with a secondary in global
health and health policy. She has been an integral student
leader of the Arab community on campus since and
is a resident tutor at the college's Adams House. Her passions lie
at the intersection of women's health and
refugee and immigrant health. And she will soon be starting
residency in obstetrics and gynecology in the
combined Brigham and Women's Massachusetts General Hospital
program right here at Harvard. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] Her remarks are entitled
"Physician Ambassadors." Join me in welcoming
Leen to the stage. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] Good afternoon, everybody. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] It is a
pleasure to be here and share some reflections with you today. Today is a special
day for many reasons. But it is extra special
for me as some of you may know because my father, who
is a Syrian passport holder, could not make it to my 2018
college graduation or my White Coat Ceremony. But thankfully,
he is here today. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] He's here alongside my
incredible mother, my brother, the best of lifelong
friends, and classmates. And I'm so grateful. It is an honor to be a part of
this day with all the families and parents here, physically,
virtually, and in spirits, collectively celebrating our and
truly your incredible milestone and significant achievements,
a culmination of over 10, even 25 years of your
guidance, support, patience, and encouragement. We thank you. During my time at HMS,
I took a research year to work on an immigrant
women's health project. And through many focus
group discussions, the concept of identity,
the strength and empowerment it brings, was so palpable. I reflected on what cultural and
religious identity meant to me, how it empowers me and
intersects with my identity as, dare I say now, a physician. After nine years in the US
and on Harvard's campus, every time I see someone
from my home region, the first question I get is,
how are you treated there? Do you face any challenges
because of your headscarf or because you're Arab? Thought-provoking
questions like this did not only come
from those far away. During PCE, a clerkship
director was checking in with me about my experience with
patients and faculty, asking me the same question. Later, during my
residency interview trail, noting that my
personal statement and extracurricular
activities were all relevant to my identity
as an Arab Muslim woman, an interviewer asked
me, what make you-- what made you feel like you can
so openly and unapologetically be yourself? Can be hard to quiet the noise
as a busy medical student and reflect on
your own identity. But I owed that reflection to
myself and to those asking. The question prompted me
to wonder about the weight of wearing my identity. Is it burdensome to me,
inconvenient to others? The answer was never
simple or concrete. It was always so
undeniably complex, a composite of experiences,
memories, stories, and internalized
perspectives, never simple, much like identities. I thought back to an experience
I had at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, where
I was doing intake with a guest who was getting
an overnight bed, an experience much similar to doing a new
admission for a patient. Next morning, he shared that
someone on his Facebook feed had made an Islamophobic post. But this time, he took it upon
himself to comment, saying, you don't know what
you're talking about. You've never met a Muslim. I met one last night,
and she treated me with more kindness than anyone. I would have never
thought that how I interacted with this
guest after a long night of volunteering would be
ingrained in his mind as what Muslims are like. I am grateful that I
was able to present a real-world manifestation
of the values my identity is founded upon and deconstruct
misinformed assumptions about it. In recalling stories
like this one, I recognized that while no
one ecosystem is perfect, Harvard is a special
place that respects and promotes celebrating
individual identities in all its kinds. And it was a
privilege to be here and to be a part
of its community. Throughout the years-- [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] Throughout the
years, away from home and from a
decade-long civil war, I have grown to recognize that
with privilege comes power, and with power comes
responsibility. And by virtue of
us being here, we have accepted that
responsibility. When I first got into
Harvard, my uncle called me [NON-ENGLISH],, which
translates to ambassador. He called me this to
refer to the identity I was to exemplify and
represent in this new place. There was so much pride,
excitement, and pressure in just one word. I am not unique in
holding an identity that shapes my worldview and values. Each one of us has their
own beautifully crafted, ever-evolving identity. But perhaps one
remarkable identity we now share and visibly wear
together is that of medicine. In just two weeks,
we will all be wearing our big, bright
badges that reads MD or doctor or physician. We will all be wearing our
not short length white coats. We will be carrying our
stethoscopes, probably not in surgery. And we'll probably be
wearing our scrubs. I think now is a good time to
reflect on the responsibility, power, and privilege
that comes with carrying the weight of hereon wearing
your identity as a physician. It is important to
always think about how, as physicians, our
individual 15-minute interactions with
one patient may have ripple effects on
their future interactions or lack thereof with health
care systems and professionals for themselves
and their families and for consequential decisions
they make with regards to their well-being. We may have rough days. We may experience burnout. We may not be perfect. And the identity
of our profession does not fall on one individual. But as we celebrate the
privilege of living out our dream of
becoming doctors, let us remember to maintain the
things we learned in POM. Remember to nurture your
empathy, your compassion, your willingness
to be an educator, to check your assumptions
and stigma, to advocate for your patients and
to go the extra mile. Our interactions
and care, no matter how fleeting, are
representative, ingrained, and consequential to
those we've dedicated the last several years to and
care most about, our patients. The beauty of the
duality in our profession is that we are often both the
scientist and the advocate, the empathetic caretaker
and the tough news-bearer, the advisor and the listener,
the entrusted teacher and the lifelong student. We are also the physician
and the ambassador. Graduating today from
Harvard Medical School-- yes, take that in,
we really did it-- we are each [NON-ENGLISH]
or [NON-ENGLISH],, ambassadors of both the identity
we openly and unapologetically carry as individuals and now our
shared identity as physicians. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] If the white coat
had an identity, then our identity is
humanity, wherever we may be. May we all proudly
wear our white coats and take on our
responsibility as ambassadors of this profession. Thank you. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
