MGH Institute of Health Professions Graduates Largest Class
<0> MGH InstituteJohn Shaw, 617-726-4276 </0>
MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston graduated the largest class in its 36-year history on May 9, 2013, when 492 graduate students became members of the Class of 2013.
More than 2,000 family and friends packed the Hynes Convention Center as students in nursing, physical therapy, communication sciences and disorders, and health professions education participated in the Boston graduate school’s 33 Commencement ceremonies.
Rebecca Onie, co-founder and CEO of Boston-based Health Leadsdelivered the keynote address. She gave a recap of how an internship at Greater Boston Legal Services in 1995 as a freshman at Harvard University inspired her to create an organization that would fill gaps traditional health care providers could not handle.
Seventeen years later, the organization that began with a card table at Boston Medical Center has grown to having nearly 1,000 college student volunteers working with 9,000 patients in 22 clinics in six cities.
Onie urged the graduating students to challenge assumptions and bring new energy and ideas to help create better patient care strategies and outcomes.
“Let us choose, together, to measure our health care not by how many diseases we cured, but by how many diseases we prevented. Not by the excellence of our specialists or the sophistication of our technologies, but by how rarely we used them,” she said.
“You are as ready as you ever will be – and possibly more ready that you ever will be – to create the new healthcare system that we as a nation so desperately need.”
Four long-time faculty members were named Professor Emerita for their decades of helping to create the health care leaders of tomorrow. The four are: Mary Carey, PhD, RD, Dietetics;Bette Ann Harris, DPTMSPhysical TherapyAlexandra Paul-Simon, PhD, RNNursing; andCynthia Zadai,DPT, MS, CCS, FAPTA, Physical Therapy
Two alumni were acknowledged for their contributions. J. Aleah Nesteby '07, MS, RN, FNP, received the Emerging Leader Alumni Award, while Kathleen Gill-Body '86, '02, DPT, MS, NCS, received the Bette Ann Harris Distinguished Alumni Award.
Department of Physical Therapy Assistant Professor DJ Mattson, DPT, EdD, SCS, received the coveted Nancy T. Watts Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The MGH Institute, which has graduated close to 5,000 people since its inception in 1977, currently has more than 1,250 students.