Highlights | Congratulations to the 73rd graduating class
- 250 medical students from the UW School of Medicine are now doctors of medicine.
- They were honored at the Physician’s Oath & Hooding Ceremony on May 28, 2022, in person for the first time since 2019.
- The Physician’s Oath & Hooding Ceremony formally acknowledges the students’ achievements and reminds them of the high ethical standard they promise to uphold in their careers.
After four years of intense study — including two years during the COVID-19 pandemic — the UW School of Medicine granted doctor of medicine degrees to 250 dedicated and talented graduating medical students from across Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho — the WWAMI region. On May 28, 2022, the UW School of Medicine’s Physician’s Oath & Hooding Ceremony was held in person for the first time since 2019 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.
The Physician’s Oath & Hooding Ceremony formally acknowledges the students’ achievements and, through the administration of the Hippocratic Oath, students are reminded of the high standards of performance and behavior, their aspirations and the challenges they’ll face as they enter professional careers as physicians.
Reflecting on medical school
“Today is a celebration of the sheer potential that we have as a medical school class. We all came into medical school with a vision of the kind of doctors we wanted to be and the communities we wanted to serve and the problems we wanted to solve… We finally have the skills and the confidence we need to go out and have the kind of impact that we’ve always wanted to,” says Haya Jamali, MD, a Seattle-based graduate, in the video below. Her training will continue as a resident in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
“Today, I feel both proud and humbled to have made it to this point — for my family and for my community,” says Gifti Abbo, MD, MPH, who began her medical school training at the UW School of Medicine – Gonzaga University Regional Health Partnership in Spokane. She will become a resident in obstetrics and gynecology at UW Medical Center – Montlake.
“This is the culmination of a lot of hard work,” says Anna May, MD, whose residency will be at Swedish-Cherry Hill Family Medicine and who will also be at the Seattle Indian Health Board. “My favorite thing about the UW School of Medicine is that they have a Native American Pathway, and I was able to learn how to best serve my Native community.”
Watch the video
Facts about the 2022 graduating class:
- 53 students, including Jamali, were elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Medical Society — a prestigious scholarly attainment. More than 50 Nobel Prize winners in Physiology and Medicine, and in Chemistry, have been AOA members.
- 38 graduates were elected to the School of Medicine Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, where they will serve as role models of the human connection in healthcare.
- 110 graduates were involved in Pathways programs to pursue their interests and develop knowledge and skills tailored to working with underserved communities. Students could pursue more than one Pathway during their medical education if desired:
- Underserved Pathway — 64 graduates
- Indian Health Pathway — 15 graduates
- LatinX Pathway — 13 graduates
- LGBTQ Pathway — 10 graduates
- Global Health Pathway — 8 graduates
- 3 graduates received PhDs in addition to their MD degrees.
- 2 graduates received MPH degrees in addition to their MD degrees.
Guest Writer: Kim Blakeley, director of WWAMI and UW School of Medicine Communications, UW Medicine Strategic Marketing and Communications
