Fink, for whom the symposium was named, gave the first of these lectures. He discussed the general biomedical advances that scientists have been achieving and their possible effects on the nation’s health. David Lawrence M.D. ’62 followed with an analysis of the obstacles currently standing in the way of delivering medical technologies to consumers in need and the changes that need to take place. Robert Weinberg, Ph. D., William Healy M. D. ’74 and Michael Mendelsohn M. D. ’77 then talked about their fields of specialization — respectively, cancer, joint arthoplasty and cardiology — in this context.
The symposium was a unique opportunity for both students and alumni; they were able to interact in a more professional setting than usual. “Alumni come back all the time, and [usually] students are not here…they get together to reunite with each other,” said Williamson. “If they get to know students, it is as athletes or performers. We thought, they don’t have enough opportunities to meet with students as the grown-ups they are. I mean, they don’t spend all of their time at football games.”
Participants were given a good idea of what they could expect in the future and the problems that they may one day be helping to solve. “It was really nice to have actual doctors there giving actual advice and a description of their jobs,” said Brian Smith ’12. “They wanted to teach us what they did and more about the medical field.”
The event was entirely alumni-funded, and there is definitely enough money to continue the tradition next year, said Williamson. Alumni have been discussing funding this kind of project for a while, and they have been working to ensure that they can continually fund future symposia and host alumni from various fields.
“In the long run, we’d like to see this as something that happens on and off all the time,” he continued. “We don’t think there’s any reason why it should be strictly biological…The idea is to get alumni in contact with students and share what is on their minds, what it is they do and plan to do.” He hopes that if these kinds of events continue to take place, organizing them will become an easier and more efficient undertaking. “One of the advantages of this becoming a regular event is that alumni would know exactly who to call and what to do.”
Future symposia will likely be geared toward students getting closer to making career decisions. According to a freshman participant, “I had fun, but I think it would have been better for someone more focused on future plans. At this point, I’ve just decided to become pre-med, and have no idea about what I might want to specialize in. It would have been more resourceful had I been at a higher level of education so that the information would have been more applicable to me. I definitely look forward to going [to events like these] in my junior and senior years.”
Over 100 students registered for the event, twice as many as Williamson had predicted. Though the number dwindled as the symposium went on, he “was very happy with the turnout.” A few students from the Five Colleges also attended. In the future, the program will likely expand to include more Five College students. “We did our best to contact students who we thought would potentially be interested…students interested in the sciences, medicine and public policy relating to health,” explained Williamson.
Overall, the symposium looked to give students a glance at what their future might hold and influence their thinking as they consider their career paths. After this year’s success, Williamson hopes the new tradition will continue. “Over the next century, we can hold 100 of these [symposia].”