I was 29 years old when I left the United States for the first time.
My husband, Nick, and I sold our Honda Civics, gave my dad power of attorney in case the worst happened, packed two suitcases and headed to Uganda in the early days of the world AIDS crisis. We were doctors on assignment at Makerere University to study HIV transmission, AIDS-related cancers, and teach in the medical school. I also took care of patients at the Uganda Cancer Institute.
For a regular kid from Reno, moving to Uganda was a big leap. The furthest I’d been away from home at that point was a month of cardiology service at The Ohio State University in Columbus.
I was back at OSU this month celebrating with its largest graduating class in history and their families — 60,000 of us packed into “The Shoe”, as locals know the stadium, where I gave the commencement address.
I love everything about commencements: watching the students bask in their achievements, their families looking on about to burst with pride, the pomp and circumstance, and the excitement for what lies ahead.
This time was a little different. Even though I’ve given several commencement speeches, I’ve never spoken to a crowd of that size. I was nervous.
I was lucky to have an old friend in my corner, current OSU President, Michael Drake, whom I trained with and got to know really well when he was chancellor at UC Irvine and I was chancellor at UC San Francisco.
He encouraged me to tell “my story” because he thought it would resonate with many of his students’ experiences—growing up in a small town, going to local schools, then to college in-state at a public research university.
“Good intentions are not good enough.”
When I thought about my story, I realized that at some point in my journey I switched from life feeling all about “me” to being all about “us”. I was always the kid focused on acing the test, working the hardest, out-performing the rest.
The turning point was deciding to go to Uganda and the profound effect my time there had on me. And in the process, I learned two valuable lessons that I shared with the Class of 2018.
The first is that good intentions are not good enough—because that’s still all about “me”.
I had to resist the urge to pat myself on the back just for going to Uganda. It was such a big decision and, even to this day, I get credit just for moving. But what really matters is what I got done and that people’s lives got better for me going. Students learned medicine from my teaching that allowed them to care for others, and very sick patients suffered less because I treated their cancer.
The second lesson is that the best advice isn’t always the best advice.
As I weighed my opportunity to work in Uganda, I have a distinct memory of a senior colleague, someone I respected and who really knew what they were talking about, telling me that I would ruin my academic career by leaving the country. It was great advice because he was right.
But here’s the point: it was “me” advice. So, to this day, I like to think of it as the best advice I never took.
Going to Uganda changed everything. It switched my measure of success from what something could do for me and my career, to how I could use my skills and what I’d learned in service to human progress.
“The best advice isn’t always the best advice.”
As I told the Class of 2018, being smart doesn’t matter unless you use your intelligence for a nobler purpose than personal gain. I just regret that it took me as long as it did to realize that.
At least OSU’s Class of 2018 have got a head start on that goofy kid from Reno. They’re already globally engaged, with an understanding of the world far beyond anything my generation had at their age. And they’ve had the benefit of attending one of the best universities in the country.
The question I asked them as I wrapped up my speech is one I find helpful, myself: There are those on the field who make progress happen, and those on the sidelines who ask: what happened? It’s 20 years from now, which one are you?
Article by "Sue Desmond Hellmann", CEO at Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation
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