After earning degrees in 17 different programs, GW’s health sciences graduates recited the School of Medicine and Health Sciences pledge in unison Saturday.

Armed with degrees in fields ranging from clinical research to regulatory affairs, these graduates leave GW towards careers in research and academia or clinical practice and administration.

But newly hooded physical therapist Joshua D’Angelo is sure they will all become partners in improving the quality and efficiency of health care in hospitals, clinics and private practices nationwide.

“My success as a physical therapist is inextricably linked to whether or not I have access to effective medications that you researched,” D’Angelo, recipient of the outstanding graduate student award, said. “We have to become interdependent.”

D’Angelo, who served as class president and volunteered in charitable clinics while working towards his degree, urged his class to become innovators in their fields to create a more effective and cooperative health care system.

He explained that he and his counterparts in other health care fields need to create a dialogue to paint a new vision for American health care.

“The only way to make improvements in the system is to speak up and use our voice loudly and often,” he said.

After earning one of GW’s first master’s in translational research, Larissa May became a four-time alumna after earning her B.A., M.D. and M.P.H. at the University.

Accepting the Alumni Association Prize, May called on her fellow graduates to learn from a mentor and pass on that knowledge by mentoring others.

“Mentorship is a shared experience, an opportunity to admit our weaknesses, to lend our strengths and to promote each other’s growth while sharing the honor role of improving the science and delivering the health care,” she said.

Senior Associate Dean for Health Sciences Joseph Bocchino called on the graduates to perfect their craft and empower others through education.

“Do not underestimate the impact that you may have on a single person, in a single point, or a single department, or in the single decision that can change the trajectory of health care at the individual level or in the aggregate,” Bocchino said.