![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SpeightsWeb.jpg\")
Dr. Anthony Speights delivering the commencement speech.\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t Dr. Anthony Speights delivering the commencement speech.\t\t<\/p>\n
Bracketed by the musical works of Sir Edward Elgar\u2019s \u201cPomp and Circumstance,\u201d the 121-member Florida State University College of Medicine Class of 2026 marched into Ruby Diamond Concert Hall Saturday as students and marched out as doctors.<\/p>\n
Joining them in the recessional line were seven newly minted Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences \u2013 Bridge to Clinical Medicine graduates, who in 10 days will begin their own march to becoming doctors as members of the M.D. Class of 2030.<\/p>\n
Dr. Anthony Speights, senior associate dean for medical education and academic affairs, broke from the ceremonial as he donned a wireless microphone and delivered the commencement address facing the class.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn to the life lesson of the day.\u00a0 Your last, and hopefully best, lesson from me,\u201d Speights said, his back to the audience and eyes locked on the students before him on stage.<\/p>\n
Speights\u2019 address ranged widely from playful to poignant; focused on his observations of how students had changed since he and his Generation X peers \u201cbelieve we were just built different\u201d than the students he addressed.<\/p>\n
For illustration he referred to his generation as latchkey kids, the MTV generation that never used seatbelts and the first generation with cell phones; as residents who worked 100-hour weeks without time restrictions, slept in the hospital call room and, in many instances became physicians who were absent from home, grumpy, placed patients and career before everything, and burned out.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that I\u2019ve spent so much time over the years telling you how different your generation is than mine as if it\u2019s a bad thing, let me tell you why your generation is different than mine, in all the ways I admire.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve learned to support each other in ways our generation never did. \u00a0You\u2019ve come to understand the need for balance in work and life.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve heard me say many times, often in what sounded like a critical way, that your generation doesn\u2019t want to work as hard as the ones before you. But in all honesty, after all these years I can let you in on a little secret. That wasn\u2019t criticism. It was jealousy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speights praised the class \u2014 and its generation \u2014 for how it has found ways to be efficient and work hard, but find time to \u201csmell the roses, watch some Netflix and hang out.\u201d How it had taught his generation of physicians the importance of mental self-care.<\/p>\n
And he reminded the class of a message delivered to them by the late Dr. Daniel Van Derme on their first day as medical students.<\/p>\n
\u201dDan said something like this: Each of us is filled with a reservoir of compassion and caring.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a river, flowing from you to your patients.\u00a0 Guard against becoming jaded, because it will dam that river up, but also keep in mind that if your reservoir is constantly flowing, it has to be refilled or it will run dry.<\/p>\n
\u201cFind and do things that refill that reservoir of compassion and caring. Caring is integral. Patients don\u2019t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bridge graduate Shawn Franklin, who has already earned praise from faculty for his compassionate clinical care skills, was locked in throughout Dr. Speights\u2019 commencement address.<\/p>\n
There is no shortage of physicians from the class who heeded that advice; many of whom were honored on the eve of commencement at the Class of 2026 Presentation of Awards ceremony.<\/p>\n
Ben Linkus, who completed his final two years at the Pensacola Regional Campus near his hometown of Gulf Breeze, received the Mission Award. Linkus is headed to Newark, Delaware, for a general surgery residency; a departure from the family medicine route he initially envisioned for himself. His third-year rotation through the Marinna Rural Program at the 100-bed Jackson Hospital, changed his trajectory, thanks to the influence of doctors Vechai Arunakul and John Brunner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fell in love with rural healthcare and what the general surgeon can do in those types of communities,\u201d Linkus said. \u201c[Arunakal and Brunner] were huge role models for me, being able to see how they impacted the community. Eventually, the plan is to come back to the Panhandle and be the rural general surgeon in a community along I-10.<\/p>\n
Befitting of her strong faith, Katelyn Cornelius was selected to deliver the invocation Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy faith has always been a big part of my life,\u201d said Cornelius, who completed her clinical education at the Orlando Regional Campus, near her hometown of Winter Park. \u201cBefore I stated medical school, I got to work at a clinic for patients without insurance that\u2019s faith-based in Orlando. I really saw how these people\u2019s desire to serve was so driven by their faith. And I worked with a pediatrician who used to talk about how, you know, we\u2019re called to be loving in anything that we do.<\/p>\n
Cornelius carried that mindset throughout her time at the College of Medicine and others noticed. At Friday nights\u2019 awards ceremony, the Alpha Omega Alpha and Gold Humanism Honor Society inductee was recognized as the Orlando Regional Campus Dean\u2019s Award winner and one of eight American Medical Women\u2019s Association\u2019s Glasgow-Rubin Citation recipients for ranking in the top 10% of her class and demonstrating leadership, service and advocacy.<\/p>\n
Dr. Alma Littles, dean of the College of Medicine, presented Cornelius the J. Ocie Harris Outstanding Student Award, which recognizes the student who has shown the best all-around promise of becoming a physician of the highest caliber.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople ask me, \u2018Why are you like this? Why are you so nice and kind and focused? Why do you know this information?\u201d she explained. \u201cFor me, it is loving and caring, and that feels like my mission and my ministry to others; to learn this information well, to care for people well, to help them feel seen and heard and loved at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Anthony Speights delivering the commencement speech. Bracketed by the musical works of Sir Edward Elgar\u2019s \u201cPomp and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[71202,13586,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-274036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-college-of-medicine","tag-fsu-health","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}