January 14, 2019

Acceptance Speech
What a great day to save lives am I right people. Good Morning! I am Addie Schlegel,
now, Dr. Schlegel. I am a board certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist as of this year, 2033. It
has been a long time coming. As you do with acceptance speeches, there are some people I
would like to thank. First, my parents of course, for supporting every dream I’ve had from the
stupidly unrealistic ones to the passion-filled ones. Next, my teachers throughout my entire life. I
have been blessed with a great education and all throughout elementary, middle, and high school
as well as college and med school, I had great teachers setting me up for success and leading me
along as I discover who I am as a person and a doctor. I would also like to thank all of you, my
fellow med school graduates, friends and colleagues for growing and learning with me. Lastly,
and I know this sounds ridiculous, but I’d like to thank myself, for remembering that my
happiness is a priority and for making my dreams a reality.
Now, we’re supposed to make a joke but in writing this speech, I looked up ob/gyn jokes
and as you can imagine, most weren’t what you would call “acceptance speech appropriate” so I
found three appropriate terrible jokes and one equally terrible funny story I thought I’d share
with you. The first joke is, how do OB/GYN's prefer their eggs? Ovaries-y. The second is, where
do OB/GYNs go to school? Gynecolleges. And third, what do you call a Jedi knight who delivers
babies? Obi-Gyn Kenobi. Lastly, the funny story. A famous heart specialist doctor died and
everyone was gathered at his funeral. A regular coffin was displayed in front of a huge heart.
When the minister finished with the sermon and after everyone said their goodbyes, the heart
was opened, the coffin rolled inside, and the heart closed. Just at that moment one of the
mourners started laughing. The guy next to him asked: "Why are you laughing?" "I was thinking
about my own funeral" the man replied. "What's so funny about that?" "I'm a gynecologist." I
highly apologize for subjecting you all to those terrible jokes. I guess with the degree comes a
terrible sense of humor as well.
So, this “award” I am getting is something I have worked for and earned. Getting to call
myself “a board certified obgyn” is something I have been waiting and hoping for for years. I
remember being a high school sophomore planning out my future and thinking, “I’m going to
have to wait what’s practically a whole lifetime until I actually get my full degree.” To some
extent, I was right. It has been a lifetime since then but it also flew by at the same time. I
remember pulling all nighters back to back in college thinking I’d never get through it. Low and
behold, I got through it and now I get to do the thing I love everyday. As my fellow doctors and
surgeons, I know you all understand the torture that is medical school and somehow, we all did
it. There were certainly some who didn't, rest in peace to all those who dropped out, as we all, at
one point or another, also wanted to do.
These past 12 years have been rocky and long from community college to university to a
bachelor’s degree to getting my MD and then finally my residency. I have learned a lot in these
years, although, I guess it’d be bad if I didn’t seeing as, people are trusting me to deliver their
babies now.
When I was younger, I wanted to be a teacher. My dream was to live in a little
schoolhouse with my family living on the second floor and my students attending school on the
first. This was my naive 5-year-old dream which has changed significantly since then. After that
I wanted to be a NICU nurse, a pediatrician and then a psychologist. But in the back of my head
the entire time was the idea of being an OB. I had this fascination and this passion for it that I
didn’t have for anything else in my life. There is one thing that all of those professions have in
common though. They all aim to help people. I am someone who tries my absolute hardest to
help people in whatever ways I can, even if they are miniscule. My goal in life is not to be rich or
to have a picture-perfect family or to become president or a celebrity or anything like that, not
that there's anything wrong with those goals. But, my goal is to better the world in whatever
ways I know how. By that I do not mean I want to change the world because come on, that’s
wildly unrealistic. I mean, I want to better the world for one person. I want to make one person’s
world a little more worth living, a little better, a little brighter, a little happier. That is all I need.
Because at the end of the day, I am just one person living in a messy, screwed up world. I am not
going to change the course of history forever. However, I don’t believe the purpose of existence
is to change the world. I believe it is to do the absolute best with the life you have been given.
That is all any of us can do. Just do our best and hope it’s enough. So, with all of that being said,
my chosen method to change the world just a little is by giving a few people the best thing they
will ever be given, a child.
Obstetrics, pregnancy, birth, hormones. All of these things fascinate me for some reason.
To other people, those things are meaningless or gross or taboo. To me, they’re one of my
biggest passions.
The idea of pregnancy has also blown my mind. Like sure, looking at it from a basic level
it’s not that cool or interesting but if you look at just the facts of it, we are mere humans,
practically ants in reference to all of space and time. But we have this ability not only to exist on
our own, but to also create tiny little humans. All people need to create a person, is another
person. And those two people alone can shape a whole human, with a brain and lungs and a
beating heart and thoughts and feelings and a personality and opinions and dreams and goals and
a future. We have the ability to create mini humans. How cool is that! I understand that to most
people, it isn’t mind-blowing. Maybe I’m just dramatic, which I am, but just as you all have your
own passions and fascinations, this is mine. And I am lucky enough to be able to make it my job.
I get to assist in the creation of life multiple times a day every day.
Now, I didn’t go into this field because I thought it would always be happy, fun, or easy.
No job is and obstetrics is no exception. There are going to be sad, tragic cases and situations
that I hear about every single day. And babies can’t be scheduled. They come whenever they
want whether it be 5pm or 5am and my schedule is demanding. You can’t just do a 15 minute
appointment with a mother in labor and then go home when your shift is over. But it all makes
up for itself because I truly do love what I do. I also love people and I always have and I love
that I have the opportunity to interact with women every day and hear about their lives and their
aspirations and their hopes and to get to know such important and intimate stuff about so many
different types of people’s lives. A huge part of my job is being patient and kind and being
someone my patients, aka pregnant hormonal women, can trust and look to for comfort in a very
overwhelming moment of their lives.
I wouldn’t trade my job for the world. I am one of the about 40,000 ob/gyns in the US
and I have worked to be a part of that number non-stop and now I finally get to do it. I am
incredible lucky, grateful and thankful to get to do what I love every single day. Now, if you ever
have babies, hit me up, I could use the money after all that schooling I just paid for Thank you
and have an amazing day!