The future of medicine will depend not only on scientific breakthroughs, but on who can access them, former National Institutes of Health Director Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, told graduates of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences during the school’s MD program graduation and diploma ceremony May 17 at Lisner Auditorium.
Addressing the MD Class of 2026, Bertagnolli described modern health care as a field of immense promise and deep contradiction, pointing to advances in gene-editing technology alongside persistent disparities in cancer outcomes driven by unequal access to care.
“You began your journey in the aftermath of a global health crisis that fundamentally changed how Americans think about health,” said Interim Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of GW SMHS Andrew W. Artenstein, MD, MBA, as he welcomed graduates and their families to the annual celebration.
“Since then,” he said, “you have navigated a complex landscape in academic medicine — from shifting research priorities to evolving public health challenges, all while immersed in acquiring the language and the massive volume of knowledge needed to become a physician.”
Becoming a doctor during this transformative era, Artenstein added, requires a special kind of commitment. “You have proven that you possess the character and skill to join this noble calling.”
The Promise and Paradox of Modern Medicine
Bertagnolli, a world-renowned surgical oncologist and physician-scientist, served as the 17th director of the NIH from 2023 to 2025. During her tenure, she championed collaborative efforts to modernize clinical research data infrastructure and expand access to clinical trials.
In her remarks, Bertagnolli encouraged graduates to pair scientific innovation with a commitment to equitable care delivery.
“Medicine has never been more powerful, and the gap between its power and its reach has never been more urgent, more visible, and more morally important.”
Through two sharply contrasting health care stories, Bertagnolli illustrated both the promise and the failures of the modern health care system. In the first, she described the journey of K.J. Muldoon, an infant diagnosed shortly after birth with a rare and life-threatening genetic disorder. Physicians and scientists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of California, Berkeley developed a personalized CRISPR-based gene therapy tailored to his metabolic disorder. After treatment, K.J. improved and eventually returned home with his family.
In stark contrast, Bertagnolli highlighted the impact of health disparities across the United States. In the wealthy mountain community of Summit County, Colorado, the cancer death rate stands at 64 deaths per 100,000 people. In Union County, Florida, the mortality rate climbs to 270 per 100,000. Bertagnolli argued that those differences persist not because treatments do not exist, but because access to high-quality care remains uneven.
“The gap between what we know and what we deliver is not a gap of scientific ignorance. … It is a gap of system design, of data infrastructure, of fairness, of political will,” she said.
Throughout her address, Bertagnolli emphasized that the next generation of physicians must focus not only on discovery, but also on building systems that deliver care effectively and fairly. She described the promise of artificial intelligence, learning health systems, and integrated clinical data to improve outcomes and reduce inefficiencies. At the same time, she warned that fragmented data systems, weak infrastructure, and unequal representation in research continue to limit progress.
This, she said, is where the Class of 2026 comes in. Physicians, she argued, must engage not only in medicine, but also in advocacy and system-building.
She urged graduates to help shape how AI is designed, governed, and integrated into patient care, ensuring it fulfills its promise to improve outcomes while also preserving trust and human connection.
“As clinicians, you will be the custodians of health data on your patients.”
Bertagnolli encouraged graduates to become advocates, educators, and system builders who can strengthen trust between patients and institutions. She closed by challenging the class to ensure that advances in medicine reach every community, not only those with the greatest resources.
“You’re taking your oath at a moment of genuine paradox,” she said. “Medicine has never been more powerful, and the gap between its power and its reach has never more urgent, more visible, and more morally important.
“The world does not only need you to discover what is possible, it needs you to deliver it for everyone.”
The Power of Small Acts
Reflecting on the class’s first day at Ross Hall, Student Speaker Abhisri Ramesh recalled the uncertain first steps members of the Class of 2026 took as they began their medical education journey.
“Since then,” she said, “we’ve shared long nights in Himmelfarb and memorable DC moments, including caring for patients as motorcades raced down 23rd Street.”
Ramesh reflected on caring for patients whose health was shaped more by where they lived than by medicine itself. She described a patient population sometimes forced to choose between essentials such as insulin and rent, and the difficulty of discharging those patients knowing they would likely return. She noted the irony of witnessing those struggles in a city where health care policy is debated just blocks from the hospital rooms of those most affected by those decisions.
“I’m sure many of us had the same thought, ‘I’m not even allowed to put in an order for Tylenol. How am I supposed to fix any of this?’ ” she said.
In those moments, Ramesh said, she’s reminded of the story “The Star Thrower,” a parable illustrating how even small acts can produce meaningful gains.
After a storm, thousands of starfish wash up along the shore, fated to die in the sun. A child begins throwing stranded starfish back into the ocean, one by one. When a passerby tells him he can’t possibly save them all and asks, “What difference does it make?” the child replies, “It mattered to that one.”
Ramesh acknowledged that finding a patient an extra blanket or offering someone in the emergency department a sandwich can seem insignificant against the backdrop of income inequality and health care disparities, “but for the person on the other end of them, I do not believe that they are small at all.”
“As we move into residency, I have no doubt that the storm is going to feel constant,” Ramesh told her classmates. “In those moments, it will be tempting to look at the sheer scale of it all and feel defeated.”
When that happens, she added, “Remember the people sitting beside you today, the ones who studied with you, struggled with you, and somehow made the hardest years of our lives feel meaningful. … every single one of you will make a difference for someone someday.”
A Charge to Lead with Trust, Compassion, and Humility
To close the event, Artenstein welcomed the newly minted alumni to “physician-citizen” status and issued a final charge to the graduates.
By becoming physician-citizens, Artenstein said, graduates accept a social covenant to use their skills, knowledge, and judgment to improve human health and reduce suffering.
He added that although trust in many core institutions has eroded, public trust in physicians remains strong.
In the first of three charges to the class, Artenstein urged graduates to be worthy of that trust. “Be the empathetic, reliable, and expert voice that your patients and your communities need,” he said, reminding graduates that they often encounter patients on “some of their worst and scariest days.”
Artenstein encouraged graduates to “never lose sight of why you are there: the patient in front of you.”
He shared an early lesson from his time as an intern on the Acute Leukemia service at Walter Reed. Caring for a high school senior whose future had been upended by leukemia, Artenstein searched her lab results each day for signs of hope while her father, a Pentagon colonel, looked to him for answers.
One day, he recalled, the girl’s father sensed the young doctor growing weary of the steady stream of questions.
“Son,” the colonel cautioned Artenstein, “she may be just another patient to you, but to me … she is my entire world.”
In his charge to graduates, Artenstein encouraged graduates to use the knowledge and skills they gained at GW to help shape a society that values the health and well-being of all its members.
“You are now our GW ambassadors to the world of medicine,” he said. “Go forward, heed the calling, stay humble, and never stop learning.”
