First of all let me say thanks to everyone who’s posted congratulations to me in various places. I feel very special. 
And graduation certainly was a lot of fun. But I’m posting here to tell you guys who are in the pipeline somewhere in medical school to try your best to get to your school’s (or some other school’s) graduation ceremony BEFORE you get to your own, simply because it’ll be so fun and inspiring that it’ll give you quite a lift.
I know at Howard, Natalie got to be an usher as a junior student. GWU doesn’t have such a tradition so I would’ve had to beg a ticket off someone graduating - which would be difficult since each graduate only gets ten tickets. So the only graduation I’ve been to is my own, and it was SUCH an amazingly joyous occasion, I am just kinda sorry to only go through it once.
As we processed in, the entire assemblage was on its feet, clapping, yelling, hootin’ and hollerin’. The noise level was AMAZING. You didn’t have to be one of the graduates to be truly impressed by the din or infected by the joyous sentiment.
Then our speaker - Dr. Antonia Novello, former Surgeon General - was just terrific, inspiring, energetic, funny.
Our hooding: there were so many cool things about this that I can’t say what was best. First, the actual conferring of degrees had been done at the university-wide graduation that morning, which our Dean of Students took pains to point out. So he then introduced each of us as “Dr. _____” when we came on stage to be hooded - it was pretty cool to hear my classmates, and then myself, referred to as Doctor! Then after being handed our diplomas by the Dean, we all signed the “register of physicians” with our name followed by M.D. My hand was shaking so bad that my signature is even less legible than usual. It felt pretty cool to do that.
When we’d all been hooded, the place erupted again in cheers and applause and we all just stood there beaming. It sure felt good!
So anyway, again my message is: go to a graduation if you can, it’ll definitely inspire you.
CONGRATULATIONS!! Wow, it’s SOOO cool to see the M.D. behind your name. Thanks for posting about your graduation - I got chills reading it!
Best Wishes Dr. Renard!!
-Christy
Howdy Mary!
Well, you know it’s time for you to get a great big:
WHOOP!!!
Way to go Dr. Renard!
BTW, I went to our school’s graduation as a second year. They say your name twice as you cross the stage:
James Bond
Dr. James Bond
Very cool indeed.
Congratulations again!
Take care,
Jeff