MGH Institute Graduates Largest Class

Dr. Gary Gottlieb, President and CEO of Partners HealthCare System, spoke passionately about the continued discrepancy in health care outcomes among underrepresented minorities in the United States during his keynote speech at Commencement ceremonies for MGH Institute of Health Professions.

Dr. Gottlieb, who addressed the 535 new graduates of the Boston health sciences graduate school, cited statistics in which African-American men live five years less, and women three years less, than their white counterparts.

“Despite remarkable improvements in science and breathtaking advances in the care and rehabilitation of the very ill, we remain disturbed by the failures of our current system,” he told the audience. “We are appropriately concerned that health care costs will continue to crowd out our ability to support those who need us most today, while preventing critical investments in our future. Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities of health care outcome and delivery continue to plague us and reflect perhaps the greatest failures of our system.”

More than 2,000 family and friends packed the Hynes Convention Center in Boston as graduates in nursing, communication sciences and disorders, health professions education, and physical therapy participated in the school’s 34th Commencement ceremonies. The Class of 2014, whose students hail from 28 states and five countries, was the largest class in the school’s 37-year history.

Dr. Gottlieb noted that since Massachusetts passed its health care bill in 2006, disparities in access to and use of care have significantly lessened, as he said that 98 percent of the state’s adult and 99 percent of children now have health insurance. “This is clearly an important first step to real equity,” he said.

And now that more than an additional 12 million Americans have health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, he told the Institute’s new graduates that they will be the people to deliver care to this growing population.

“You are our greatest opportunity to make good on the promise of humane, safe and excellent health care that can and will be accountable to the demands and expectations of the people of the United States and other countries in which you choose to serve over the course of your magnificent careers,” Dr. Gottlieb said. “The opportunities for you in this environment are limitless and your leadership will give us a splendid pathway to excellence, great effectiveness, and a new-found efficiency.”

Two alumni were acknowledged for their contributions to their chosen profession. Allan B. Smith ’96, PhD, CCC-SLP, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Maine in Orono, received the Bette Ann Harris Distinguished Alumni Award, the school's highest honor to a graduate. Nicole Silva ’06, MS, CCC-SLP, a speech-language pathologist at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, received the Emerging Leader Alumni Award.

School of Nursing Clinical Associate Professor Patricia Reidy, DNP, RN, FNP-BC, received the coveted Nancy T. Watts Award for Excellence in Teaching. The Watts Award, named after one of the physical therapy profession’s pioneers and the Institute’s first leader of its physical therapy department, is presented each year to a distinguished faculty member who has excelled in meeting teaching excellence criteria and is recognized by students, faculty, colleagues, and other members of the community.

The MGH Institute, which has graduated more than 5,400 health care professionals since its inception in 1977, is the only degree-granting affiliate of Partners HealthCare System. The school, located in the Charlestown Navy Yard, currently has more than 1,250 students.