The Yale Child Study Center (YCSC), which serves as the department of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, honored forty trainees in the class of 2024 at an annual departmental commencement event on June 21, 2024. The event was followed by a reception for graduates and their families.
Held in person in the Cohen Auditorium and simulcast via Zoom, the event began with a welcome given by YCSC Chair Linda Mayes, followed by a lively and humble keynote speech delivered by YCSC Professor Michael Bloch, who also serves as co-director of the T32 postdoctoral research fellowship in childhood neuropsychiatric disorders as well as associate program director of the Solnit integrated training program.
Bloch shared details about his personal background and professional journey, along with some of the lessons he is continuing to work on. Relaying a metaphor based on the 2015 online viral image of a dress that some saw as white and gold and others as blue and black, he noted, “There’s an important lesson to learn from this dress, that people can have completely different perceptions of the same image based on previous experience, color, perception, underlying neurobiology.”
He went on to say, “Try to listen, respect, and understand other people’s story, experiences, and opinions. They may be very different from you. They may actually literally see things differently. As we're lucky enough to have an environment with increasing diversity of perspectives, training paths, and experiences – we need to recognize this also as we're treating patients with greater diversity.”