Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine celebrated the MD Class of 2026 during the school’s Investiture ceremony on Saturday, May 9, when 94 medical students received their Doctor of Medicine.
After welcoming family and friends to the ceremony and recognizing participating faculty and guests, including Geisel’s Incoming Dean Jennifer Hunt, MD, Steven Leach, MD, interim dean of the medical school, introduced keynote speaker Odette Harris, MD, D’91, a member of Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees.
Harris, an internationally recognized authority on traumatic brain injury, is the Paralyzed Veterans of America Endowed Professor of Spinal Cord Injury Medicine, professor of Neurosurgery, and vice chair for Diversity at Stanford University School of Medicine.
After congratulating the Class of 2026 on their accomplishments, she talked about the deep kinship she felt with them, her experience as an immigrant as well as the dream and deeply invested commitment her Jamaican parents held for their family to become Americans, and the importance of honoring individual dreams and the collective journey.
“It is that dream of my parents that I stand here fulfilling,” she said. “This day, this occasion respects and honors not only your dreams but your journey. My journey was one from immigrant to American to academic medicine. Your journey is now at a pivotal point.”
In closing, Harris said, “Today, you are becoming doctors. This is an incredible honor. And although we gather here today in awe of that accomplishment, I hope that you also hold gratitude. Gratitude that extends to all who have taken the time to come and to celebrate this moment, those who have supported you, who have held you, who have guided you all along your journey. So today I urge you to celebrate your accomplishments and to thank those who have allowed your dreams.”
MD Investiture Ceremony Photo Gallery:
Chosen by fellow students, class-speaker Helen Thomason MED ’26, also this year’s recipient of the Dean’s Leadership Award, shared heartfelt observations about the medical school experience.
“Like every good Dartmouth speech, I am going to talk about a hike—one I took with classmates,” she said. “We hiked the smallest of the 4,000 footers while snow and ice were still on the ground, but we were prepared.” She had new spikes.
Thomason described how, when her spikes failed, she watched her friends Taylor and Paulita hike farther ahead as she slipped and slid down the mountain, “I decided sledding on my bottom was the only option to make it down the mountain.”
Swinging her hiking poles in the air, Thomason dropped to the snow. Gaining speed and screaming as she plowed down the mountain, “I heard Paulita calmly yelling, ‘you are okay, you are okay’ as she placed herself in my path and tackled me to a stop. Indeed, I was okay.
“There were many times in medical school when it felt like I was barreling down a mountain, not sure how to slow down. Like Paulita on that trail, people jumped to catch me more times than I can count.
“The pull toward something greater than ourselves is what brought us to the bottom of this mountain—ready, together.”
In his closing remarks, Interim Dean Leach mentioned his deeply held belief that medicine is a team effort—an intense, demanding, sometimes humbling experience that nobody gets through alone—and expressed his sincere appreciation for the sacrifices and support of the graduates’ families and friends.
With apologies to Hippocrates and his four humours—blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm, Leach left the new physicians with four “more ethereal” humours to carry into their careers: compassion, curiosity, humility, and gratitude.
He described compassion as more than empathy, calling it an active willingness to understand and relieve suffering, an intention which is at the very heart of being a physician. On curiosity, which he called “the raw material that fuels discovery,” he drew on the wisdom of William Osler, encouraging graduates to be as curious about their patients as individuals as they are about disease itself.
For humility, he reminded graduates to hold their certainties loosely, to remain open to being wrong and what that experience may teach them. And on gratitude, he suggested that it is the physician's own gratitude, not only the patient’s that also sustains a life of fulfillment in medicine. “…We are the lucky ones. We are the ones who get to take care of folks. We are the ones who get to discover new knowledge, and who get to discover the miracle that resides in each patient we encounter.”
He closed by reminding graduates to carry these four humours with them, not as abstract ideals, but as daily practice. “On the hardest days, when you are tired and uncertain and the work feels impossible, return to compassion, return to curiosity, return to humility, and return to gratitude. They will not let you down as I know you will not let your patients down,” he said.
If you missed the MD Investiture Ceremony, you may watch it here:
You can also download the event program here.
Highlights from Friday’s Faculty and Student Awards ceremony:
The William Mellen Chamberlain Memorial Prize: Vincent Busque MED ’26—given each year to a member of the graduating class, The William Mellen Chamberlain Memorial Prize recognizes the medical student with the best overall record of achievement throughout medical school.
The Good Physician Award: Titilayo Mabogunje MED ’26—given annually, the Good Physician Award, recognizes a member of the graduating class who best exemplifies the personal and intangible qualities of caring and empathy of the good physician.
Public Health Award: James Feng MED ’26—received the Excellence in Public Health Award from the United States Public Health Service’s Physicians Professional Committee in recognition of his contribution to public health.
Dr. Ann J. Davis Faculty Award: For his dedication to making a meaningful difference in the medical student experience at Geisel, Matthew Duncan MED ’01, assistant professor of psychiatry and of medical education received the Dr. Ann J. Davis Faculty Award.
A full list of honorees is available in the Awards Ceremony Program.
If you missed the 2026 Medical Student and Faculty Awards Ceremony, watch the video here: