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“Adams’ Motto” during residency (1988-1992): “Just keep showing up every day and eventually they’ll put you in charge.” That’s what happens to every class of interns, as they arrive flush with promise, green as springtime shoots. And amazingly, they progress through four short years to become wizened and wise chief residents, battle-scarred but proud, capable and competent.
Imagine my surprise to find my old residency motto still true for myself as a faculty member. I became Residency Program Director in 2003, much to the amusement of Mark Nichols, my own PD. I was always the one who neglected to track my case logs, and could have papered the walls of the call room with my incomplete medical records notices! Now I’m the one hounding the residents to “get it done.” I suppose it’s karma.

Nonetheless, I can’t think of a thing I’d rather be doing in my own career. When I consider why we teach, I remember the influence of my own mentors in medical school and residency. Those doctors embodied what I was working so hard every day to become. Their example, their support, and their own high standards for themselves and those around them were held in my memory in my years in private practice. I never hesitated to pick up the phone and call one of them if I was stumped. Now, as a faculty member, I still hear their voices, and I continue to quote them in my own teaching.

We are a community. All of us move forward together: learning more, teaching more, and offering our own contribution to the whole. Whether it is working on a new piece of curriculum, taking a leadership role in our practice group, sharing our research project with a resident, teaching someone just a year behind us in training, walking a resident through the first—or the fiftieth—hysterectomy they’ve done, coming back to the banquet after years away in practice, or in the hundreds of other ways we are connected, we continually share our wisdom with those just coming along. We are all engaged in this work together.
I invite you to reconnect with old friends, and make new ones, by joining our newly established Alumni and Friends Association. Please consider coming back this year to renew old ties at our Alumni and Friends Weekend (see details on page 3. Some classes are even coordinating their attendance. Call up your classmates! You’d be amazed to see how things here have changed, and yet how they remain the same. And as always, I am deeply proud to share this important work with all of you.

Alumni Graduates

Alumni Newsletters

Oregon Health & Science University

Department of Obsterics & Gynecology

Mail Code L 466

3181 S.W. Sam Jackson Park Road

Portland, OR 97239-3098

Phone:	503-494-3106
Fax:	503-494-5680
Email:	forsterv@ohsu.edu