The George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) Physical Therapy (PT) Class of 2025 graduates gathered on the afternoon of May 16 to celebrate their many accomplishments and to reflect on the achievements of the collective GW PT students and faculty during the annual Doctor of Physical Therapy Awards Ceremony.
Marisa Birkmeier, DHSc ’22, DPT, director of the GW Physical Therapy Program and associate professor of health, human function, and rehabilitation sciences, welcomed the graduates and reflected on their time throughout the DPT program. Birkmeier charged the graduates to not forget the impact of kindness during their professional journeys, saying “merging your amazing personal attributes with your physical therapy knowledge, skills and abilities basically gives you the tools to do small and big acts of kindness in different ways to improve the human experience.”
Barbara Lee Bass, MD, RESD ’86, FACS, vice president for health affairs, dean of GW SMHS, Walter A. Bloedorn Chair of Administrative Medicine, and professor of surgery, spoke to the graduates encouraging them in their next steps.
“While you have been here, at GW, you have acquired tremendous skills that are going to really serve you fabulously in your professional lives,” Bass remarked. She noted that the graduates and “were well founded, well rooted by virtue of the outstanding education and training … during your years here.”
Joyce R. Maring, EdD, DPT, PT, professor of health, human function, and rehabilitation sciences, gave heartfelt remarks to the graduating class. She shared that this was one of the last classes with whom she had the pleasure of unpacking the intricacies of neuroscience, noting that it was “a time that I truly enjoyed.” She then quoted words of inspiration Mark Twain once had given in a commencement speech, “life is short, break the rules.”
Maring explained that while she would not recommend a group of licensed individuals “break the rules,” but rather “always question and potentially change the paradigms on which those rules and practices are based.”
Maring cited that often the paradigms that rules are based on findings that are “outdated and unevenly and unequally applied,” urging graduates to stay involved and challenge the paradigms. She ended with her own interpretation of Twain’s famous phrase, “life is short, change the rules.”
The GW PT Class of 2025 embraced a long-standing tradition by joining together and gifting the next class of GW PT students with their first white coats.
Following the remarks, the PT faculty presented this year’s honors for academic achievement, service, and education. This year’s award winners included:
- Outstanding Alumni Award: Rachel Wilcox, DPT ’22
- Outstanding Clinical Educator Award: Annie Golovcsenko, DPT, PT, PCS
- Outstanding Clinical Site: Encompass Health of Bowie, Maryland
- ENGAGE Impactful Community Partner Award: The Foggy Bottom West End Village
- Academic Excellence Award: Dominick Allese and Emily White
- Clinical Leadership Award: Sarah Aronovsky and Allison Brower
- Service Excellence Award: Quinn Rabinowitz, Daniel Gray Weaver, and Claire Wong
- Peer Recognition Award: Erica Rogers
- Special Recognition Award for Advocacy, Jean Johnson Award for Leadership, Excellence, and Quality: Emily Madsen
- Outstanding Faculty Award: Dhinakar Jayaseelan, DPT, DHSc, OCS, FAAOMPT
The awards ceremony also recognized the class leadership and groups of outstanding students who volunteered at the pro bono during their time in the GW SMHS PT program.
Ellen Costello, PhD, PT, professor and chair of the Department of Health, Human Function, and Rehabilitation Sciences, closed the ceremony with encouraging words for the graduates for their future. Costello shared one of her favorite stories about the anthropologist Margarette Mead, who when asked about the first signs of a true civilization, replied, “a healed femur.”
Costello explained that to Mead, healing from such a serious injury was evidence of community; that someone “cared and stayed behind to protect the injured person and nurse them back to health.”
“You, the class of 2025, are those people,” Costello added. “You will stop, you will care, and you will restore.”
