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Bill McRaven, who recently retired as a four-star admiral after 37 years as a Navy SEAL, became Chancellor of The University of Texas System in January 2015.<\/p>\nThis week, Chancellor Bill McRaven\u2019s 2015 commencement speech at UT Southwestern Medical School entitled, \u201cThe Power of Giving Hope,\u201d debuts the Medical Commencement Archive.<\/p>\n
Bill McRaven, who recently retired as a four-star admiral after 37 years as a Navy SEAL, became Chancellor of The University of Texas System in January 2015.<\/p>\n
McRaven also is a recognized national authority on U.S. foreign policy and has advised the President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and other U.S. leaders on defense issues.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Foreign Policy Magazine named McRaven one of the nation\u2019s Top 10 foreign policy experts and he was later selected as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. He served as primary author of the President\u2019s first National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism and also drafted the National Security Presidential Directive-12 (U.S. Hostage Policy) and the counter-terrorism policy for President George W. Bush\u2019s National Security Strategy.<\/p>\n
McRaven graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 1977 with a degree in journalism and received his master\u2019s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey in 1991.<\/p>\n
Chancellor McRaven begins his speech by boldly listing the very real responsibilities and expectations that graduates now have as residents and doctors in practice:<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a patient, I want my doctor to be smarter than I am. I want them filled with knowledge and I want them to understand how to use that knowledge to confront the challenge before them\u2026 As a patient, my doctor must at all times be in command – in command of themselves, in command of people around them and in command of me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He continues by narrating his personal experience as a patient with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and the life-altering and healing power of hope that one physician gave him:<\/p>\n
\u201cAll because one man gave me hope.\u00a0 Because one man healed me of my greatest malady: fear.<\/p>\n
Above all else, as doctors, you must give your patients hope.\u00a0 Even under the most dire of conditions, hope can heal.\u00a0 Hope surpasses all our understanding.<\/p>\n
Hope is the medicine that gives smiles to the forlorn, faith to the disenchanted and life to the dying.<\/p>\n
Give your patients hope.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He finishes by reminding graduates that although delivering bad news can be spiritually crushing and debilitating enough to push physicians into an emotional separation from patients, maintaining compassion and faith is a moment that patients will remember forever:<\/p>\n
\u201cA thousand moments to restore their faith, a thousand moments to give them hope, a thousand moments to heal their wounds and to show them the love and compassion that every great doctor must possess.
\nAnd that first moment begins right here and right now, because for now and evermore, you will be the doctor.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n