Medical, nursing, allied health convocations to be this weekend
Dr. Harry Adams, professor emeritus at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, will be the speaker at the medical school’s annual convocation Friday, May 9, and other health sciences convocations are also scheduled.
Brody’s convocation will begin at 3 p.m. in Wright Auditorium on the ECU campus.
Adams was a full-time faculty member and infectious disease specialist at ECU from 1984 to 2001. He retired in July 2001 but continues to work half-time. At ECU, he has won numerous teaching awards. Adams has a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and a medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
Medical students Erin Swanson and Rob Fish will also speak.
Among the graduates will be two who are not headed into traditional medical residency programs. Jessica Weeks and Heang Lim will instead leave for Honduras May 31, where they will spend most of the next six months providing health care to impoverished Honduran residents. They will be working with the group Shoulder to Shoulder, a relief organization that works in Honduras.
Other schools in the ECU Division of Health Sciences will also hold convocations. The College of Nursing convocation will be Friday at 9 a.m. in Wright Auditorium. The speaker will be Diane Poole, executive vice president of Pitt County Memorial Hospital and ECU nursing alumna. The college will graduate its largest bachelor’s degree class ever, 153 students. Thirty-nine master’s students and one doctoral student also will graduate.
The College of Allied Health Sciences will hold its convocation at noon Friday in Minges Coliseum. Guest speaker is Dr. Phyllis N. Horns, who has served as interim vice chancellor for the Division of Health Sciences and interim dean of the Brody School of Medicine since November 2006. Addie Chelbnikow Miller, a graduate from the Department of Physical Therapy, will be the student speaker. The college will graduate 210 students.
Commencement exercises for all ECU graduates will begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
More information about this weekend’s graduation activities is available online at http://www.ecu.edu/commencement.