Class of 2007 Address
Jeremy Nicolarsen, Pritzker Chief Class of 2007
Excerpt below from Pritzker Co-Chief Jeremy Nicolarsen’s address to his classmates.
This is it guys. We have arrived.
I have to admit, I don’t know whether I’m more relieved to find out where I’m spending the next four years of my life or if it’s just that I’m sick of dodging that most annoying question, “So where do you want to be next year?” You know the question. We’ve all answered it differently but with the same degree of vagueness. But those stressful times are now over my friends. We have arrived.
I could stand up here and tell you that you are going to excel at whatever you do, but you guys already know that. I could tell you that you are well-prepared to enter your residencies (and survive them), but you already have what it takes. I could motivate you to become incredible doctors, but I’d merely be preaching to the choir. What I’d like to do instead is tell you and our guests, faculty, and schoolmates how this Pritzker Class of 2007 is simply amazing.
At no other time in my life have I met such an intelligent and interesting group of people. I have been truly humbled by the things you all have done, by your stories from college, by your aspirations. Over the course of the four years we shared similar experiences — three-day exam binges, Sunday nights at the Cove, and the infamous Pritzker surveys. And we ALL know we’re in the midst of amdical revolution, thanks to Dean Humphrey. We stood by each other, we celebrated, we went to Cuba, Vegas, Whistler, and Dave-a-palooza. We mourned a classmate. Many of us dated and married and some of us even had babies. We’ve done all these things and we have made a hundred friends along the way.
Over the past four years we learned great things about each other. We learned that in our ranks we have a former Navy helicopter pilot, an ex-firefighter, countless EMTs, a South Indian dancer, and dozens of student-athletes, including a female wrestler. We listened to our classmates sing opera, play the flute, and do aman Stevie Wonder. We have seen our classmates publish in Science, present at national meetings, and excel in the ER.
Not only did we learn that each of us has something incredible to contribute to this class, but we became a family and we began to depend on each other more and more. When you were on the transplant service and you had only slept 6 hours in the last 48 hours, you were not alone. Or when you walked to the hospital at 4:30 am in your thin scrubs in sub-zero Chicago weather for surgery pre-rounds and then retracted in the OR for 6 hours, you were not alone. When you pre-rounded on your 5th medicine patient by 7:00 am only to workround with your resident, then sit-round, then walk-round on those patients, and since it was a call day, you were told that you would also be rounding again that night, you were not alone. The great thing about this medical school, THESE medical students, is you didn’t have to look hard to find someone who was there alongside you, or someone who would listen.
We now embark on residency and the rest of our careers. We will undoubtedly meet many intelligent, incredible people. We will undoubtedly depend on others, especially in the field of medicine. We will have questions toppling through our minds. But you know what? We are the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine, Class of 2007 and we all know that the best thing about this day is we no longer have to hear that question, “So where do you want to be next year?”
Good luck!
