Talk about having a ball! After a three-year hiatus, the annual Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) Faculty vs. Students Basketball Game returned to the University of Pennsylvania’s Palestra on Friday, May 5. The event drew a crowd of enthusiastic students, faculty, family, and friends, with the students’ team winning 59 to 54.
This much-loved annual tradition began nearly 20 years ago when Ralph Muller, former CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, joined fellow basketball enthusiasts across PSOM’s faculty, staff, and residents to organize an informal weekly pick-up game. As word-of-mouth spread, students were eager to join as well, and the weekly games soon became a much larger annual event.
Eric Bean, now a fourth-year med student also pursuing a master’s degree in Bioethics, heard about the yearly game in his first year at Penn. The game was well-known as a fun end-of-year opportunity to bond with fellow classmates and instructors, and he was eager to participate. Then COVID-19 happened – and as a result, the games went on hiatus.
A year ago, with the pandemic’s worst days past, Bean reached out to Dan Kessler, PhD, an associate professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at PSOM, to bring the game back. Each served as coaches for this year’s student and faculty teams, respectively.
Faculty co-organizer Robert Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, director of the Abramson Cancer Center, was thrilled by the return of the popular event, saying, “I hope we can keep this game going. It’s great to see faculty and students work so hard to make this happen and it feels good to see how cherished a tradition it’s become.”
From left, Robert Vonderheide, Ralph Muller, and Dan Kessler
To top the event off, Muller, now retired, returned to start the game with a ceremonial jump ball. “Students and faculty love this tradition, and we’re so grateful that the Penn Athletics Department has supported us over the years,” said Muller.
During the game, both students and faculty wore jerseys originally planned for the 2020 game to commemorate its post-pandemic return. A number of PSOM students also helped build hype and drive participation in the event, including Deepak Indrakanti, a first-year student with an interest in psychiatry. “This is such a great way to form bonds with our classmates and instructors outside of the classroom, and to compete in a really fun way,” he said.