jamie.williams@unchealth.unc.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nWhitehead Medical Society co-presidents Patrick O\u2019Shea and Kyle Roedersheimer kicked off the 2015 Whitehead Lecture by asking the first-year students in the crowd to raise their hands. As more and more hands began to go up, the group got a large ovation from the crowd of fellow students and faculty members. The first-year students, who arrived on campus only a few weeks ago, were then treated to a lecture by Alice Ma, MD, associate professor, department of medicine, division of hematology-oncology, and an awards presentation recognizing the outstanding faculty members and fellow students they will learn from and with while at UNC.<\/p>\n
The annual Whitehead Lecture serves as an unofficial convocation for the School of Medicine. It is named in honor of Dr. Richard Whitehead, who served as dean of the School of Medicine from 1890 to 1905. The Whitehead Lecture has been an annual event since 1947.<\/p>\n
Each year, the student body elects a speaker to present the lecture. Being elected to deliver the Whitehead Lecture is among the highest honors for faculty members at the School of Medicine. In this role, Ma did not disappoint.<\/p>\n
In her introduction, Julie Byerley, MD, MPH, Vice Dean for Education, called Ma a \u201crole model to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Self-deprecating wit characterized Ma\u2019s speech, which narrated her winding road from medical school to her current position.<\/p>\n
The themes of Ma\u2019s lecture closely followed its title: \u201cEndurance, Obstacles, Perseverance and Joy: My Transformation from the World\u2019s Crummiest Medical Student to Faculty at the World\u2019s Best Medical School.\u201d<\/p>\n
With great humor, Ma recounted her early struggles as a medical student. As she put it, \u201cI didn\u2019t expect medical school to be like this,\u201d <\/i>referring to the amount of memorization required. \u201cThere was no thinking involved,\u201d she said. A year of research at the NIH, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was a transformative experience and she returned to medical school reinvigorated. A large part of her eventual success, she said, was her dedication to reading and studying every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a point to read a medical text at least a half hour each day,\u201d she said. \u201cI would read pre-call, on-call, post-call whenever I had time. And, by the end of the year I was smart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her interactions with patients also helped cement why she\u2019d first become interested in medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent a lot of time talking with my patients and found that I really loved that part of medicine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Through her residency, chief residency and fellowship, all at the University of Pennsylvania, Ma\u2019s path again had some curves as her interests shifted from ophthalmology to cardiology and eventually her current specialty of hematology-oncology.<\/p>\n
She arrived at UNC in 1998 to do basic science research. When her second round of grants was not funded, she said her division chief encouraged her to become a clinician-educator, a role she now calls her \u201cdream job.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she put it, \u201cI see patients, I teach, I love my job. I love UNC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second-year medical student Kevin Huang attended the lecture and said her speech wasn\u2019t so different from Ma\u2019s teaching style.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has a very entertaining way of teaching,\u201d Huang said. \u201cHer lectures were definitely a highlight of my first year.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she had the crowd laughing throughout her speech, Ma\u2019s parting words were applicable to everyone in the room, from the first-year medical students, to Ma\u2019s fellow faculty members.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should do medicine because it\u2019s right for you, not for your family, your friends or the money. And, if you wake up in the morning and don\u2019t love what you do, then you\u2019re doing the wrong thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Alice Ma, MD, associate professor, department of medicine, division of hematology-oncology, delivered this year’s Whitehead Lecture on August 19. The themes of Ma\u2019s lecture closely followed its title: \u201cEndurance, Obstacles, Perseverance and Joy: My Transformation from the World\u2019s Crummiest Medical Student to Faculty at the World\u2019s Best Medical School.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38607,"featured_media":2297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","odd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Alice Ma Delivers Whitehead Lecture - UNC Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alice Ma Delivers Whitehead Lecture - UNC Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alice Ma, MD, associate professor, department of medicine, division of hematology-oncology, delivered this year's Whitehead Lecture on August 19. The themes of Ma\u2019s lecture closely followed its title: \u201cEndurance, Obstacles, Perseverance and Joy: My Transformation from the World\u2019s Crummiest Medical Student to Faculty at the World\u2019s Best Medical School.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UNC Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-31T18:47:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-09-28T19:26:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/711\/2018\/05\/alice-ma-whitehead-lecture-2015-1.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Steven Humes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Steven Humes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Steven Humes\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/#\/schema\/person\/a5bb71b468f894216678efa30edc3f22\"},\"headline\":\"Alice Ma Delivers Whitehead Lecture\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-31T18:47:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-09-28T19:26:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/\"},\"wordCount\":696,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/711\/2018\/05\/alice-ma-whitehead-lecture-2015-1.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"HTC News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/htcenter\/alice-ma-delivers-whitehead-lecture\/\",\"name\":\"Alice Ma Delivers Whitehead Lecture - 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"\\"Alice")
<\/p>\n