Photos: Elisabeth Fall

There are many moving moments in a graduation ceremony; moments of somber reflection, moments of tears, of heartfelt sighs.

And then, there are moments such as this: Student speaker Alon Unger, after first apologizing to his parents and the faculty, dons a stocking cap, tinted glasses, some bling-bling, and turns into Ali G.

"Oi. I is here all de way from Staines to ax you one question. Is you is or is you not da class of 2007?!!!"

For the uninitiated: Ali G. is satirical character invented and played by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Not quite the figure you expect to see on the stage of the Nob Hill Masonic Center at the School of Medicine Commencement ceremony, where the faculty assembled yesterday in full academic regalia to confer the title of Doctor of Medicine to 150 graduates in the presence of their loved ones.

But, as Unger reminded out of town visitors: This is San Francisco, where his classmates, "a motley crew of policemen, pilots, poets, and peace activists," would demonstrate for "health, not war."

The alliteration left out another p-word: "parents" (though elsewhere Unger acknowledged the "productivity" of his class.) The formal "hooding" of the graduates at the climax of the ceremony involved an apparent record number of young women and men who stepped on the stage with a new baby in arm.

As is his custom, Dean Kessler had singled out students who had become mothers or fathers during medical school at the very start of the event, along with other graduates and faculty who had achieved special recognition. But the dean reserved his highest praise for the parents, grandparents, siblings and friends of the graduating class, the very people who helped them reach this milestone. "You first learned about the art of healing", he reminded the class of 2007, "when your mom or dad looked down at your skinned knee ... and saw not a surgical field, but a child needing comfort."

Convocation speaker William Schecter, himself a parent of a recent graduate, reflected on "the fact that although the period of gestation for a human being in the Western World remains nine months, the period of nurture now approaches three decades."

Schecter, the founder of Operation Access, had been chosen by the graduating class to give the key speech. Between lighter notes, he also struck a somber tone when he talked about the responsibility of physicians to acknowledge and learn from mistakes, yet not letting themselves be crippled by errors they would inevitably commit. "Remember, the only surgeon who does not have complications is one who does not operate."

Alon Unger too, after his brief routine as Ali G., switched back from stocking cap to mortar board and mused about the indelible memories of moments he and his peers experienced during medical school, "when you were the one to who told your patient that he was dying. When you were the only person in the hospital who could speak your patient’s language, and he told you the one thing that he couldn't tell anyone else -- that he was afraid." With some emotion, Unger invoked the memory of gifted teacher Pat Patterson, who died tragically in 2003. He reminded his fellow graduates that "we are a lot like Pat. Sometimes the hardest person to take care of is yourself."

Taking the oath (l to r): Graduates Arthur Sullivan, Michael Wilson
and Vanessa Thompson

One of UCSF's special traditions is the giving of the gold-headed cane award, honoring the graduating student thought by his peers to be most representative of the true physician. The nominees for the Gold-Headed Cane Award of Class of 2007 were Micaela (Mika) Godzich, Vanessa Thompson, and Michael Wilson. All three students are honored equally, and each is inducted in to the Gold-Headed Cane Society. The cane is traditionally handed over by a physician who had received it some decades earlier. This year, Dr. Lorne Eltherington, who received his cane in 1967, passed his cane on to awardee Michael Wilson.