Families and friends gathered on the Dean's Lawn Sunday to watch and cheer as students received their master's, doctoral and medical degrees. The School of Medicine's convocation ceremony was held on a breezy warm afternoon under an airy tent. Mothers in dresses and saris climbed atop folding chairs to catch a glimpse of one of the proudest moments in their children's lives as fathers armed with digital cameras recorded the event for posterity.

School of Medicine faculty survey the procession of soon-to-be graduates as they join the commencement ceremony. Irv Weissman later delivered a speech urging the new grads to consider above all else their conscience as they head into a future of medical practice and scientific discovery.

Despite it being Father's Day, couples and fortune cookies emerged as impromptu themes for the day, beginning when Rabbi Amy Bardack, celebrating her husband Jared Magnani's graduation, gave the invocation. "May you be awed by the wonders of the human body and humbled by the mysteries of life and death," she told the graduates.

Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the medical school, said newlywed Lauren Ilyse Richie Ehrlich, PhD, wrote her address to fellow graduates while on her honeymoon. "We've been given an incredible gift," she told her fellow graduates. "With that gift comes the responsibility to give something back to our society."

Medical school graduates also chose husband and wife classmates Joel Mata, MD, and Adeunice Sanchez Mata, MD, to represent their class in an address to the audience. Sanchez Mata told the story of a grandmotherly patient she met while training. Practicing medicine is not just about what doctors do for people, but how these people enrich the lives of doctors, she said. "Seemingly commonplace experiences will shape the way we practice medicine," she told the crowd.

Ehrlich and Joel Mata both shared inspiring messages they found in fortune cookies, while Dean Pizzo assured the graduates that everyone in the audience would be eating Chinese food for dinner that night.

Pizzo impressed upon graduates their new roles as ambassadors for Stanford University and the School of Medicine. "Your mandate is to be outstanding physicians, outstanding researchers and outstanding individuals." In all, 37 students received their MS degrees, 72 received PhDs and 92 received MDs.

Irv Weissman, MD, delivered the keynote address to the graduates. Weissman, who earned his medical degree from Stanford in 1965, is the Karel and Avice Beekhuis professor of cancer biology and professor, by courtesy, of biological sciences. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he is a pioneer in stem cell research.

Regarding moral issues that today's scientists and physicians face in such areas as embryonic stem cell research, Weissman urged graduates to set aside personal beliefs in favor of scientific advancement. "While such a procedure is abhorrent to some for moral, ethical, or religious reasons, it has to be recognized that it could lead to breakthroughs that will change biomedical science and medicine itself," he said.

Weissman described how he tackles moral issues, in part by reviewing the oath doctors take before they practice medicine. "When I sought guidance from that oath, I interpreted it to mean that as an MD biomedical researcher, I must leave at the door my own personal politics, religion, ethics, etc., so that meaningful research and therapies can be generated," he said.

He said Congress is currently considering two bills that would place limits on stem cell research, adding that "passage of these bills would require us to fail to honor our oaths, as there will be a time when you will have to deny current and future patients therapies that could have been in our grasp."

Weissman also spoke of the importance of basic research, encouraging graduates to take pride in themselves and their work. "To succeed, talent is not enough. You need to have commitment and take responsibility. You need to do your work with integrity." Even for those who do research or go into industry, he said, the patient is always the first consideration.

Weissman presented another pointed challenge to medical students. "If you don't find a way to fight the insurance companies, then you're not going to be serving society," he said. "Tend the gardens where your talent lies. It'll be better for you and better for society."