Transcript
2025 Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Graduation Address: Paula Johnson
From Harvard Medical School · Episode page · Watch on YouTube
· 27 min · 3,282 words · 35 timestamped sections
This is the full, timestamped transcript of "2025 Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Graduation Address: Paula Johnson", an episode of Harvard Medical School published June 2, 2025 (27 min, about 3,282 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Dr. Paula A. Johnson, Wellesley College, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Judah Folkman, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
What this episode is about
Dr. Paula A. Johnson, the first physician and 14th president of Wellesley College, delivers a graduation address highlighting her commitment to advancing equity, expanding access to education, and transforming women's education. Her leadership has led to significant achievements in supporting underrepresented students, enhancing STEM education, and promoting interdisciplinary learning through innovative initiatives and state-of-the-art facilities.
Key takeaways
- Dr. Johnson proves that leading with empathy and science isn't just necessary; it's revolutionary.
- Graduates, you’re not just healers; you're architects of change in medicine’s thrilling evolution.
- From sickle-cell crises to gene therapy—who knew medicine could change faster than a viral meme?
- AI's potential vs. ethical responsibility: a medical dynamic that could rival any engaging medical drama.
- Dr. Johnson's journey shows that breaking barriers in education isn't just influential; it's indispensable for society.
Who speaks in this episode?
- Paula A. Johnson (Host) · 26 min speaking
What is discussed, and when
Notable quotes from "2025 Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Graduation Address: Paula Johnson"
Under Dr. Johnson's leadership, Wellesley has expanded access to higher education, increased support for underrepresented students, and led a groundbreaking transformation of the college's approach to science and global engagement.
about Wellesley College · atShe founded the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where her innovative work reshaped our understanding of how sex and gender influence health.
about Brigham and Women's Hospital · atPlease join me in welcoming an extraordinary leader, advocate, and frankly, role model, Dr. Paula A. Johnson.
about Dr. Paula A. Johnson · atSome of you undoubtedly know Dr. Folkman by reputation for his groundbreaking work that linked angiogenesis, or the growth of blood vessels, to the growth of tumors.
about Dr. Judah Folkman · atHe later laughed at himself for thinking that in that moment, he had actually invented social medicine.
about Dr. Jack Geiger · atDr. Poussaint inevitably began addressing a system of institutionalized racism.
about Dr. Alvin Poussaint · atLeaning was rising in medical management at the Harvard Community Health Plan in the 1980s and '90s when she returned to the academy, joining the faculty of Harvard Medical…
about Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health · at
Who and what is mentioned in this episode?
People
- Dr. Paula A. Johnson — Person · Main speaker · 3 mentions · first at
Delivers the keynote/commencement-style address, using her career and mentors as examples to argue for 'citizen physicians' who pair clinical excellence with public service and equity. - Dr. Judah Folkman — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Cited as a compassionate physician-scientist who advised Johnson during her daughter's illness; used to illustrate humility about unknowns, hope, and the link between science and service. - Dr. Jack Geiger — Person · Referenced historical figure · 1 mention · first at
Presented as a model 'citizen physician' who helped pioneer community health centers and framed illness as shaped by social, racial, economic, and political forces. - Dr. Alvin Poussaint — Person · Referenced mentor/role model · 1 mention · first at
Described as Johnson's mentor and a civil-rights-era physician who documented discriminatory practices and pushed systemic change in Southern hospitals and clinics. - Dr. Jennifer Leaning — Person · Referenced expert / exemplar · 1 mention · first at
Highlighted as a cofounder of Physicians for Human Rights and a researcher of public health in war and forced migration; used to emphasize global citizenship, trust, and 'utmost courtesy.'Dr. Leaning's research focused on public health issues during the devastation of war and forced migrations.
Companies & orgs
- Wellesley College — Company · Affiliation · 1 mention · first at
Dr. Paula A. Johnson is the 14th president of Wellesley College, highlighting her leadership in education. - Brigham and Women's Hospital — Company · Affiliation · 2 mentions · first at
Dr. Johnson founded the Connors Center for Women's Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital, showcasing her pioneering work in women's health. - Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health — Company · Affiliation · 2 mentions · first at
Dr. Johnson was a Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, linking her to public health education. - Rockefeller University — Company · Affiliation · 1 mention · first at
Dr. Johnson serves on the board of Rockefeller University, indicating her influence in scientific research institutions.Dr. Johnson continues to influence the future of education, health care, and public policy through her service on numerous boards, including the Rockefeller University, Johnson…
- National Academy of Medicine — Company · Affiliation · 1 mention · first at
Membership in the National Academy of Medicine underscores Dr. Johnson's recognition in the medical field.She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council of Foreign Relations.
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences — Company · Affiliation · 1 mention · first at
Her membership in this academy highlights her contributions to arts and sciences.She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council of Foreign Relations.
- Council of Foreign Relations — Company · Affiliation · 1 mention · first at
Being a member of the Council of Foreign Relations indicates her involvement in global policy discussions.She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council of Foreign Relations.
Places & events
- COVID-19 pandemic — Event · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
The pandemic is discussed as a significant challenge that Dr. Johnson helped address, emphasizing her role in public health.During the COVID-19 pandemic, she played a vital role in reopening college campuses safely across Massachusetts by leading statewide testing efforts and shaping policy.
Full transcript with timestamps
It is now our great honor to welcome a true trailblazer in education, science, and public health, Dr. Paula A. Johnson. Dr. Johnson is the 14th president of Wellesley College and the first physician to lead the institution. A nationally recognized leader, she has spent her remarkable career expanding opportunities, advancing equity, and championing the transformative power of education. At Wellesley, her ambitious agenda to educate civically minded and globally prepared students has lifted women's education to new heights, while honoring the college's storied history and legacy of leadership.
Under Dr. Johnson's leadership, Wellesley has expanded access to higher education, increased support for underrepresented students, and led a groundbreaking transformation of the college's approach to science and global engagement. During her tenure as president-- during her tenure as president, Wellesley has produced more women science PhDs than any of its liberal arts peers, doubled the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing STEM majors, and reimagined the Science Center into a state-of-the-art facility.
She also launched the Wagner state-- excuse me, the Wagner Centers for Wellesley in the World and the Hillary Rodham Clinton Center for Citizenship, Leadership, and Democracy, creating new pathways for interdisciplinary learning and public impact. Before becoming president of Wellesley, Dr. Johnson was a pioneer in medicine and women's health. She founded the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where her innovative work reshaped our understanding of how sex and gender influence health.
She served as Chief of the Division of Women's Health at Brigham, held a Grace A. Young family professorship at Harvard Medical School, named in honor of her mother, and was a Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Her impact also extends into public health leadership. She was appointed by Mayor Thomas Menino in 2007 to chair the Boston Public Health Commission. In her decade-long tenure, Dr. Johnson oversaw initiatives that significantly reduced health disparities, and expanded affordable housing, and improved care for vulnerable communities.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she played a vital role in reopening college campuses safely across Massachusetts by leading statewide testing efforts and shaping policy. Dr. Johnson continues to influence the future of education, health care, and public policy through her service on numerous boards, including the Rockefeller University, Johnson and Johnson, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council of Foreign Relations.
A proud graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, Dr. Johnson earned her bachelor's, MD, and MPh degrees from Harvard. She trained in internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, where she became the first African-American to serve as a Chief Medical Resident in Medicine. Please join me in welcoming an extraordinary leader, advocate, and frankly, role model, Dr. Paula A. Johnson.
Selena, thank you. Thank you for that really wonderful and generous introduction. And I do want to say, as one New Yorker to another, I am from Brooklyn. OK. So let me just put my water down. Members of the graduating class, Dean Daley, Dean Giannobile, Dean Chang, faculty, families, and friends, I am so honored to be with you today. Graduates, you have my most heartfelt congratulations on reaching this milestone in your lives. You are physicians. You are dentists. You are scientists. No matter what corner of medicine you choose as your own, you will help heal the world.
Now, this is the 40th anniversary of my own graduation from Harvard Medical School. I cannot help but reflect on the ways that medicine has advanced since 1985. When I did my pediatric rotation at Children's Hospital in 1983, I was on what was then called the adolescent unit. It was on the general medical service. One of the diseases that we saw in many patients was sickle-cell disease. These young people would come into the hospital in crisis, often with damage to their hearts, their kidneys, and their bones. Fast forward to today.
We can cure sickle-cell disease with gene therapies-- --which, at that point, had never been tried in humans. In 1985, heart failure had an extraordinarily high mortality rate. Today, we have new devices, artificial hearts, and new classes of drugs that have prolonged and improved the quality of the lives of so many patients. Back then, there was an early electronic system for retrieving results of blood work. But there was no electronic medical record. The internet was in its infancy. And the world was just coming out of the first artificial intelligence winter, a time of deep disappointment with the progress being made.
Today, AI can predict protein folding and disease progression, offer helpful therapy for disorders such as depression, and interpret medical images. Back then, a medical understanding of the complex impact of social and environmental forces on health was only in its early days. And the term "health disparities" had really not come into use. Today, data science and large-population studies tell us how insidious those disparities actually are, so that we have a chance to develop policies and practices to correct them.
Much of the positive change in both science and medicine, clinical care, has been well earned and hard won. And there's no reason to think that change will do anything but accelerate. However, advances in science and technology are ethically neutral. It takes people of conscience and caring to ensure that powerful tools, such as AI and CRISPR gene editing, are used for good. You will shape the innovations that you discover, invent, embrace, and confront to ensure that they help your patients and as many patients as possible.
I believe that the future will demand that you are more than a physician. It will require you to be a citizen physician. Now, what exactly does that mean? And what is the world calling upon you to do? Well, there are time-honored, sacred, and profound responsibilities attached to our profession. To be able to heal confers an obligation to heal. You are already keenly aware of this. Those responsibilities are reflected so beautifully in the oath that this class has written for itself, which you will take shortly. Citizenship certainly begins with patient care, care that recognizes the humanity and dignity of the people in front of you and makes them full partners in the decision making.
For me, this awareness is deeply personal. Like all physicians, I've been on both sides of the doctor-patient relationship. Some years ago, my daughter faced a devastating medical challenge with a doubtful prognosis. Like anyone in this situation, I threw myself into action-- reading, asking questions, seeking out the best specialists, and seeking answers that I knew might not yet exist. At this immensely unsettling time, I reached out to the late Dr. Judah Folkman, who directed the vascular biology program at Boston Children's Hospital.
And I asked for his help to really give us insights into potential treatments for our daughter. Some of you undoubtedly know Dr. Folkman by reputation for his groundbreaking work that linked angiogenesis, or the growth of blood vessels, to the growth of tumors. He and his team ultimately paved the way for a new class of drugs. Thus far, they have not been the panacea for cancer that Dr. Folkman had hoped for. But they have been effective for people with degenerative diseases of the eye. Dr. Folkman was famous for taking in many students into his lab, not because he thought that they were committed to a career in research, but to expose them to the journey of scientific discovery, both its joys and its pains.
I still remember our conversation vividly. Yes, Dr. Folkman said to my husband and me, much is unknown about your daughter's condition. But science is advancing. The fact that there are unknowns gives me hope, and should give you hope as well. Where there's an unknown, there's hope for the future. Hope is what Dr. Folkman's words that day gave to my family and me. And this was not about making false promises. It was really quite the contrary. It was about respect for the limits of current knowledge, humility in the light of those limits, and faith that knowledge would expand in the future, and that he would be there to help us.
It was also about the clear connection between science and service to people. Most of all, it was about compassion. More than two decades later, my daughter is still with us on a treatment that could not have been imagined those years ago. Artificial intelligence will soon have every medical answer based on the totality of the world's research. But as historian of science Dr. D. Graham Barnett wrote recently, "To be human is not to have answers. It is to have questions and live with them. The machines can't do that for us.
Sometimes the things that patients need most is someone to consider the questions with them." Even physicians and dentists who become scientists need to humbly consider the context of people's lives in the design of their studies, or they risk missing something essential. In my career, I've worked hard to change a paradigm in both research and clinical care that had largely ignored the biological variable of sex. Though it might seem shocking to the class of 2025, here's an example of the scientific landscape, what it was like when I graduated from medical school.
In the 1980s, a famous study called the Physicians' Health Study found that taking aspirin daily would prevent heart attacks. This was a simple, yet brilliant discovery. But there was one problem. Every single one of the 22,000 physicians included in the clinical trial was a man. And yet the findings were presented as if they held true for women too, which we now know is not the case. For many years, we had a medical culture that treated women merely as a deviation from the norm, and therefore, left their health to chance.
As we know, every cell does, in fact, have a sex. So women are not just different in their reproductive organs, but in their hearts, in their lungs, and in the hormonal changes that they experience throughout their lives. Fortunately, we've made a great deal of progress since then, including women and female animals and cells in research populations, and in disaggregating our results by sex so that we can understand the different courses that some disease take in women and offer them better care. So I urge you to value equally every individual who comes into your trust.
And don't leave anyone's health to chance. Now, each of you has already lived through one of the greatest challenges of this century, the COVID pandemic. We had already been seeing a decline in the public's confidence in science and medicine. But the pandemic accelerated this decline. Some of this lack of confidence can be explained by medical disinformation that had become rampant on social media. And in retrospect, we, as physicians and scientists, could have been better at clearly explaining what confronting a new pathogen entails, that we were learning as we went along.
Today, we see public health being undermined by a failure to affirm the value of vaccines, and the impact of climate change on health, and so much more. We are witnessing the dismantling of the greatest biomedical research system in the world. The times are asking enormous things of all of you. But you are prepared. Remember that Harvard's motto is "Veritas," or "truth." In an atmosphere of mistrust, it is critically important for clinical physicians and physician scientists to be able to translate their knowledge, their practice, and their science into the public domain.
This is an important form of citizenship that you are uniquely qualified to exercise. Harvard is fighting hard as we speak, both for the academic freedom that allows the truth to be told, and also for the academic freedom that allows the rigorous pursuit of truth in the first place. It is up to all of us to cherish that academic freedom that allows us to do research on any question, unencumbered by government pressure. Remember that no institution or organization has the right to tell you to ignore the evidence or your best judgment.
In just a short while, you will pledge to be active agents in pursuit of justice, to empower communities marginalized by society, to acknowledge that medicine operates within an unjust system, and to advocate for systemic change. As physicians, you will inevitably be drawn into social as well as medical questions as you try to understand the factors that have shaped your patient's well-being. You will also have the unique power to influence policies that lead to change. I think of the incredibly brave physicians of the Civil Rights era.
One of them was Dr. Jack Geiger, who had what he called an epiphany as a medical student at Case Western Reserve University in the 1950s. He stood on the school steps, looking out over the city of Cleveland. And suddenly, he understood that the question of who got sick, why they got sick, and what happened to them, these were not just biological phenomena, but social, racial, economic, and political phenomena. He later laughed at himself for thinking that in that moment, he had actually invented social medicine. But it was the beginning of his sense that medicine can be an instrument of social change.
In 1964, he joined the Medical Committee for Human Rights, which was formed by northern physicians to offer first aid to Civil Rights activists in the South in the face of police brutality and mob violence. A year later, the Medical Committee for Human Rights hired my dear friend and mentor, the late Dr. Alvin Poussaint, as its full-time Southern field director. Dr. Poussaint, who would go on to a long and distinguished career here at Harvard Medical School, at that time, was the chief resident in psychiatry at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute when he decided to take the job.
His colleagues at UCLA literally thought he was insane. For a promising young Black physician with such illustrious training to risk his life in Mississippi-- although I must say, they politely referred to specific psychiatric disorders rather than blanket insanity. And Dr. Poussaint did risk his life on marches where demonstrators were gassed, clubbed, and beaten. But these physicians did more than show courage. Because they were keenly aware of the responsibility conferred by their own powers to heal, their mission in the South kept expanding beyond treating the immediate injuries of the demonstrators.
Dr. Poussaint inevitably began addressing a system of institutionalized racism. His strategy was brilliant. He documented cruelly discriminatory practices in Jim Crow hospitals and clinics and helped to bring them into line with federal law by ensuring that their eligibility for federal Medicare funds hung in the balance. He was so successful that by the early '70s, hospitals in the South were the most integrated institutions in their communities. Like Dr. Geiger, Dr. Poussaint was shocked by the appalling conditions in which poor Black Mississippians were forced to live and provided basic health care for them, helping to inspire the movement towards community health centers.
The driving vision was to create affordable clinics for vulnerable people that offered health care, but also health-enabling services, such as food, sanitation, and education. One of the first demonstration centers that Dr. Geiger and Dr. Count Gibson opened was in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in 1965. And they prescribed groceries for families with malnourished children. Now, the governor of Mississippi complained to federal officials that Dr. Geiger was misusing government pharmacy funds. Dr. Geiger replied that the last time he had checked his medical textbooks, they said that specific therapy for malnutrition was food.
He was allowed keeping up his outstanding work. Today, community health centers in the US serve more than 32 million patients. Time and research have proven the success of this model in reducing health disparities, lowering infant mortality, treating chronic disease, creating jobs and investment in communities, and cutting costs. But Dr. Geiger's interest in creating the conditions under which individuals can flourish did not stop at our national borders. He was a founding member of two groups that were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize-- Physicians for Social Responsibility, which was honored for its work to end the nuclear arms race, and Physicians for Human Rights, which was honored for its work to ban landmines.
Another cofounder of Physicians for Human Rights is Dr. Jennifer Leaning, another model for what it truly means to be a global citizen, as well as a physician. Trained in emergency room care, Dr. Leaning was rising in medical management at the Harvard Community Health Plan in the 1980s and '90s when she returned to the academy, joining the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health because she wanted more time to teach and write. Dr. Leaning's research focused on public health issues during the devastation of war and forced migrations.
She has conducted work during humanitarian crises around the world. She has not just investigated war, but she's also investigated what's called true grace, which is defined as what it is that makes people behave with kindness, even to their enemies, amid wartime violence and degradation. One of the major factors she has identified is a feeling of self-efficacy, a sense of personal usefulness. People are simply more likely to help a stranger when they have the skills to do so. Graduates, you are among the most self-efficacious people on the Earth.
Never forget your power to improve a life or the systems that impact many lives. When asked how health care workers in crisis zones can gain trust, Dr. Leaning had the simplest and most practical, yet most noble answer. People have to be reassured, she said, by uniforms, and white coats, and cleanliness, and stability of process, and utmost courtesy. As I look back now, Dr. Folkman would have agreed. That utmost courtesy is what he gave to me. This is not just a recipe for success in war. It is a recipe for success for all physicians every day, in every office, and in every laboratory, and in every arena, from the local to the global.
It is your compassion that made you a physician. It is the thing that your patients need most from you every day and in every way. It is what your research, if you choose that path, will demand from you, so that you can do your best and most creative work in service to humanity. It is the thing that your fellow citizens of this small planet need most from you. So stay true to that beautiful oath you wrote for yourselves. And keep it always as your North Star. Each of you will find your own way to apply your skills and answer your interests.
I know you are up to the challenges in front of you, which, in many ways, are greater than the challenges my generation of physicians faced. You have already been tested in profound ways. I know you will be good to those who rely on you to heal them when they cannot heal themselves. I know you will remain humble, even as you move mountains. Members of the class of 2025, my fellow citizen physicians, congratulations. In the years ahead, I wish you courage, happiness, and the enormous fulfillment of shaping a better world.
Questions about this episode
Who speaks in "2025 Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Graduation Address: Paula Johnson"?
Paula A. Johnson (Host).
What is "2025 Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Graduation Address: Paula Johnson" about?
Dr. Paula A. Johnson, the first physician and 14th president of Wellesley College, delivers a graduation address highlighting her commitment to advancing equity, expanding access to education, and transforming women's education. Her leadership has led to significant achievements in supporting underrepresented students, enhancing STEM education, and promoting interdisciplinary learning through…
What is mentioned in this Harvard Medical School episode?
13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Dr. Paula A. Johnson, Wellesley College, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Judah Folkman, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, COVID-19 pandemic. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.
How long is "2025 Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine Graduation Address: Paula Johnson"?
The episode runs 27 min; the transcript is about 3,282 words in 35 timestamped sections.
More from Harvard Medical School
About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.