MU School of Medicine Awards 110 Degrees at Commencement Ceremony

Honorary degree will also be conferred to renowned orthopaedic oncologist

The University of Missouri School of Medicine celebrated the graduation of 110 students in the class of 2023 Saturday, May 13.

This year’s graduating class included 18 graduates who trained at the school’s Springfield Clinical Campus in southwest Missouri. The Springfield Clinical Campus is a public/private partnership with MU and CoxHealth and Mercy hospitals.

MU School of Medicine alumnus Benjamin Schmidt, MD, was selected by this year’s graduating class to serve as commencement speaker. Schmidt is a gastroenterology fellow at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital who is known for his popular social media videos that aim to educate and entertain.

The 2023 class of medical students from the MU School of Medicine was highly sought after: 97% of the class received a residency program match, meaning many hospitals and health systems chose graduating MU medical students as their top resident physician candidates.

After receiving their medical degrees on Saturday, these physicians will go on to receive additional training in their chosen specialties. Many of the physicians – 31% of MU School of Medicine’s class of 2023 – will remain on the MU campus for their residency training. 44% of the MU School of Medicine 2023 class will remain in Missouri, and 36% of this graduating class selected residency programs in internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics. Of those graduating, 71 are from Missouri and the others represent 16 other states and three other countries.

Graduates of the MU School of Medicine consistently score higher than the national average on the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). MU School of Medicine graduates are trained, evaluated and expected to be competent in their ability to deliver patient-centered care, including their capability to communicate with the patient, family members and colleagues working as part of an interdisciplinary team.

The commencement ceremony also featured a special honor. Kristy Weber, MD, the Abramson Family Professor in Sarcoma Care Excellence, Chief of Orthopaedic Oncology and Abramson Cancer Center Sarcoma Program Director at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine was conferred with the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.  Weber is a 1987 graduate of MU, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree after studying Animal Science at CAFNR. In her current role, she specializes in the treatment of children and adults with benign and malignant bone and soft tissue tumors as well as metastatic bone disease. She is the first female president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), the world’s largest medical association of musculoskeletal specialists.

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Friends and family of the graduates can visit the University of Missouri commencement page for more information.