Farewell speech of the rector of ONMedU Valerii Zaporozhan to the graduates of 2021

Dear colleagues, today we are holding the final meeting of the Academic Council this academic year. This year has been fruitful and successful for our university. We adapted the training and treatment processes to quarantine restrictions, held the examination session on time, and prepared well for the admission campaign.

One of our most responsible and important tasks is accreditation. We have done a great job and I am pleased to announce that it is going according to the plan. I am sincerely grateful to all of you for all the aspects I have mentioned. Thank you for your work, for your responsibility and love for our common cause.

Although I will run a little ahead, but I want to wish you useful, interesting vacations, which, I hope, you will spend with family and on the best Odessa coast of the Black Sea.

Traditionally, these days I want to address graduates separately.

Dear friends! Six years ago you entered Odessa National Medical University. I remember what kind of children you were then – passionate about becoming doctors, devoting yourselves to science and serving people. And today I am glad to see you others: mature, prepared, determined. I am glad to see you as my colleagues.

You have put in a lot of effort. We know how difficult it was to study here at times – each of us once went this way. Lectures, sessions, exams, tons of literature – to get closer to studying the vast world of medicine. Today is the day that crowned your efforts. I sincerely congratulate you on the successful graduation from Odessa National Medical University.

You have chosen a difficult profession and have overcome only the first step on the way to it. What you have learned here n should be a hundredth of everything you will learn during your professional career. Because the doctor’s training and self-development should not be interrupted for a day. Ahead of you there will be the first patients, the first diagnoses, outstanding victories over diseases and, unfortunately, defeats in the fight. After all, we cannot save all people from all diseases. But we can save them from bad doctors! Always strive to be not just good professionals, try to be the best. You will have to overcome many difficulties, but both me and all our teaching staff know: you are ready for them and you will cope with them.

The last days of June are special and touching for me and for every teacher. But they have no sorrow, because we do not say goodbye. Some of you will start working in a university clinic, some will enter graduate school and internship, many of you will become our colleagues in teaching and training future doctors. The rest will travel around the world. But no matter where we are, we will always be one friendly family. Odessa Medical University is our alma mater. In these walls you are always welcome, here you are always waiting, here you will always be supported and will always be proud of your achievements. I will be happy if the rector of Odessa University, vice-rectors, deans and heads of departments are among you. With such a change, we will not be afraid to retire.

Dear friends! I hope that the past years will forever remain in your memory as the brightest, warmest and most interesting years in your life. I sincerely want you to keep in touch with your teachers, mentors, classmates, with whom you have become true friends.

Today, I am sincerely proud to call you colleagues. Be happy, successful, in demand and fulfilled in your profession. Never back down, believe in your strength, do not stop learning. Without regret and without a doubt, give yourself to work! And then you will definitely see what every real doctor came to our profession for: saving lives, maintaining health, gratitude in the eyes of your relatives and friends, which cannot be expressed in words. Believe me, these moments are worth all the effort.

Way to go!