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Charleston native son Stephen Colbert returned to the Lowcountry to address the latest graduating class of physicians outside of the building that carries his father’s name. The Comedy Central superstar made jokes about the economy and reminded the graduates that they are human.
By Chelsea Hadaway
chadaway@scbiznews.com
Published May 15, 2009
Charleston’s own Stephen Colbert returned to familiar stomping grounds this morning as he delivered the Medical University of South Carolina’s 180th commencement address.
Speaking in front of the James W. Colbert Education Center and Library, which last month was named after Colbert’s father, he doled out advice and humor to the graduates on the horseshoe.
He counted it an interesting turn of events that he was asked to give a speech full of words of wisdom, because he has made his living being an “aggressively ignorant blowhard.”
But Colbert’s address at MUSC brought him back to a place where he used to come with his father, the school’s vice president of academic affairs from 1969 until 1974, whose office was in the building now named for him.
In case the graduates have been too busy in their studies, Colbert brought them “up to speed on what’s going on in the world today.”
“The economy’s going great; in fact, it’s going so great that you young people have an opportunity to be the next Greatest Generation,” he said. “And if anyone needs a car, you can get a great deal on a Chrysler … or on Chrysler for that matter. It’s on sale on Craigslist — $80 billion or best offer.”
In between quips about cadavers named Ricky and medical school pickup lines were moments of poignancy, as Colbert reflected on his father, who died in a plane crash when Colbert was 10 years old.
“When a parent dies to a young child, the godlike image of that parent is trapped in amber,” he said. And then the child loses the ability to see the parent as a human, he said. But he thanked Dr. Layton McCurdy, who was a friend of his father’s and another faculty member at MUSC, for telling him stories of his father as a human and as a doctor.
Colbert spoke of his father’s favorite quote from Jacques Maritain: “The only sadness is not to be a saint.” This played into his advice he wanted to give to the graduates, which was “go make mistakes.”
“But it’s irresponsible for me to tell graduates of a medical college to go out and make as many mistakes as you can,” he said. So he instead offered other advice: “Lower your patients’ expectations as to your competence as soon as possible.”
After making jokes about walking in wearing the patient gown and reading a children’s book called “Your First –Ectomy,” he finished with the sincere advice that “You are humans, and you always have the right to fail.”
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