--- description: Dr. Kent Brantly delivered a commencement speech at Indiana University. title: Watch an Ebola Survivor's Powerful Speech to Med School Grads image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbb527ae6f3b1eefd/6987ef1bcd1bbafd0b6f95df/kent-brantly.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) ## Health Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [ebola](/tag/ebola/) ## ebola Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Watch an Ebola Survivor's Powerful Speech to Med School Grads  by [Jack Linshi](/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 10, 2015 3:13 PM CUT  Dr. Kent Brantly, an Ebola survivor, speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015 in Washington, DC. Dr. Kent Brantly, an Ebola survivor, speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015 in Washington, DC.Dennis Brack—Getty Images  by [Jack Linshi](/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 10, 2015 3:13 PM CUT Dr. Kent Brantly, one of the Americans who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Liberia, [told](http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2015/05/09/ebola-doctor-kent-brantly-iu-med-grads-stay-help/27057889/ "undefined") graduates of the Indiana University School of Medicine on Saturday that failure isn’t the focus of being a physician. Brantly, among the “Ebola Fighters” honored as [TIME’s Person of the Year](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-fighters-choice/ "undefined"), recalled his experience treating—and losing—patients as a missionary doctor in Liberia, the Indianapolis _Star_ reports. After he contracted Ebola last summer, he was transferred to the U.S. for care and later declared virus-free. “Losing so many patients certainly was difficult, but it didn’t make me feel like a failure as a physician,” the Indianapolis native said at the commencement ceremony, “because I had learned that there was so much more to being a physician than curing illness. That’s not the most important thing we do. The most important thing we do is enter into the suffering of others.” “We were able to hold the hands of people as they died, to offer dignity in the face of humiliating circumstances,” Brantly said. “You are going to share in the most intimate parts of your patients’ lives. You will share in their moments of tragedy. But you will also share in their moments of greatest joy. You will make a difference in people’s lives, and you will make a difference in the world.” Brantly, a graduate of the same medical school, also proudly shared the news that the World Health Organization, earlier in the day, had [declared](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2015/liberia-ends-ebola/en/ "undefined") an end to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia. \[[Indianapolis _Star_](http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2015/05/09/ebola-doctor-kent-brantly-iu-med-grads-stay-help/27057889/ "undefined")\] ### Photographing TIME's Person of the Year in Africa, Europe and the U.S.  Foday Galla, 37, Ambulance Supervisor, photographed at home wearing a PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) suit, in Signboard community, in Monrovia, Liberia. Nov. 26, 2014 Jackie Nickerson for TIME  Salome Karwah, 26, a nurse currently working at Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres’ Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, Liberia. Nov. 26, 2014 Jackie Nickerson for TIME  Dr. Bruce Ribner, Medical director of Emory University Hospital's Serious Communicable Disease Unit in Atlanta where he treated U.S. Ebola patients. Nov. 20th 2014. Bryan Schutmaat for TIME  Nurse Kaci Hickox photographed outside her relatives home Freeport Maine. Nov. 16, 2014\. Hickox was quarantined in New Jersey after treating Ebola victims in Sierra Leone. Bryan Schutmaat for TIME  A Nurse and Hygienist trainee dressed in PPE at the Liberian Ministry of Health’s Ebola Treatment Unit at the former Ministry of Defense compound, in Monrovia, Liberia. Nov. 27, 2014 Jackie Nickerson for TIME  Professor Thomas W. Geisbert at his Lab at the the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Dec. 2, 2014\. Geisbert is a virologist who conducted the first Trials of the Drug TKM-EBOLA. Bryan Schutmaat for TIME  Foday Galla, 37, Ambulance Supervisor, photographed in Signboard community, in Monrovia, Liberia. Nov. 26, 2014 Jackie Nickerson for TIME  Amber Vinson and Nina Pham, nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. They contracted Ebola while treating patient Thomas Eric Duncan. Dec. 5, 2014 Bryan Schutmaat for TIME  Dr. Jerry Brown, 46, Medical Director of ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. Nov. 27, 2014 Jackie Nickerson for TIME  Dr. Pardis Sabeti photographed in her lab at the Broad Institute in Cambridge. Nov. 26, 2014\. Dr. Sabeti sequenced the Ebola Genome from this outbreak. Bryan Schutmaat for TIME  Prof. Peter Piot photographed in a lab at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Nov. 12, 2014\. He discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. 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