{"id":132367,"date":"2024-12-09T19:56:38","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T23:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&p=132367"},"modified":"2025-11-09T11:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T16:29:10","slug":"donors-students-celebrated-at-combined-keefer-society-scholarship-dinner","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/medicine\/articles\/2024\/donors-students-celebrated-at-combined-keefer-society-scholarship-dinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Donors, Students Celebrated at Combined Keefer Society\/Scholarship Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Donor Sarkis Kechejian, MD,\u201963, with Kechejian scholarship recipients Eleanor Shi, MD\u201926 and Daniel Matthews, MD\u201923, \u201927.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDonors, Students Celebrated at Combined Keefer Society\/Scholarship Dinner\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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December 9, 2024<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\tTwitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\tFacebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n

When he graduated from Boston University School of Medicine (now the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine) in 1963, Sarkis Kechejian had accumulated $7,000-$8,000 in debt, roughly $70,000 to $80,000 today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich I was quickly able to pay off,\u201d said Kechejian in an interview at a dinner to honor the Chester S. Keefer, MD, Society members as well as scholarship donors and their students on September 28 at the Hotel Commonwealth. Named for the former medical school dean (1955-1960), the society was established to recognize the dedicated donors whose total lifetime contributions have reached $100,000 or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to rising tuition and student debt, Kechejian started a scholarship fund in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was in the position to be able to give back,\u201d he said. \u201cI was able to lighten the burden on these students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The medical school\u2019s scholarship endowment has grown from $15 million 25 years ago to more than $150 million today. Scholarships help students lower debt, are attractive in recruiting the best students and promote socioeconomic, racial and ethnic diversity while allowing students to choose less lucrative specialties, like primary care or pediatrics, which are staffed at critically low levels in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Scholarship
Scholarship donor Burton Golub, MD\u201965 at the combined Keefer Society\/Scholarship Dinner on Sept. 28.
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to assist people to be able to participate in medical education who might otherwise not be able to due to financial reasons,\u201d said Burton Golub, MD\u201965, of the scholarship fund he founded a few years ago with his wife Lee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy wife and I aren\u2019t looking for gratitude and thank-yous. We\u2019re happy to do it, and we\u2019re financially able to do it,\u201d said Golub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some donors are modest, even dismissive about their generosity, students are universally appreciative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge amount of money and I am able to go through medical school with more peace of mind because I don\u2019t have to worry about the financial burden of taking out $400,000 in loans,\u201d said second-year medical Nnaemeka Chukwudalu Nwoke, MD\u201927, who received a scholarship from the Golubs and a second one from the Louis W. Sullivan, MD\u201958, Endowed Scholarship Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf someone invests in me, I will break my back to make sure that investment is worth it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is one of the things that has driven me my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nwoke was one of two student speakers at the dinner, which was attended by more than 100 donors and students. He came to the U.S. from Nigeria by himself at 17 to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His early academic success at the University of Southern Florida was tempered by his failure to get into medical school on his first try. It took more than four years of working in various medical positions before he was accepted into the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWords simply cannot express how grateful I am for the opportunity to be here,\u201d Nwoke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Medical
Second-year medical student and scholarship recipient Nnaemeka Chukwudalu Nwoke was one of two student speakers at the Keefer Society\/Scholarship Dinner.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Brown, MD, recalled working as many as four jobs to pay for medical school. Brown is a neonatologist who was an associate professor of pediatrics at the school from 1987 to 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first two years of medical school were incredibly difficult,\u201d she said. \u201cBasically, I didn\u2019t sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Donor
Donor Elizabeth Brown, MD, talking with recipients of her scholarship.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat really (drove) my interest in funding scholarships, because people shouldn\u2019t have to do that to follow their dreams,\u201d Brown said. The Dr. Elizabeth Brown Endowed Scholarship Fund requires recipients have an interest in becoming a pediatrician or an affiliated specialty, although they are not held to that choice if they change their mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to help support young people who had an interest in pediatrics and were in the same (financial) situation I was in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m just in awe of people who choose to give what they have to support others,\u201d said fourth-year medical student Noelle Wojciechowski, who also spoke at the dinner. She is the beneficiary of a scholarship from the Drs. Karen and Elliott Antman Medical Student Scholarship Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Receiving money from the medical school dean was especially meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big testament to BU\u2019s commitment to bridging the divide (between the wealthy and those in need of financial help) within medical education,\u201d said Wojciechowski. Her medical interest stems from her father\u2019s multiple sclerosis diagnosis. As a child she helped care for him, assisting her mother who is a nurse. At age 10, she attended a camp for children of MS patients and was drawn to the physicians who educated them about the condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was at this point that I began considering becoming a doctor myself. I wanted to be able to help people who were afraid, or who were upset. I wanted to be able to explain to them what was happening.\u201d<\/p>MD student Noelle Wojciechowski<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By high school, her father could no longer work, and the family worried about being able to pay for college and medical school. Wojciechowski said her scholarship has allowed her to consider a career in internal medicine as she applies for a residency post-graduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful for the opportunities I\u2019ve had, not only to attend medical school, but to have some of that financial anxiety taken off my shoulders,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Leila
Leila Caplan, MD\u201928, is recipient of Deborah W. Wilson, PhD, Endowed Scholarship, with Deborah and John Wilson.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After 48 years as a researcher and professor of anatomy & neurobiology during which she received numerous teaching awards, Deborah Wilson retired in 2020. Three years ago, she started the Deborah W. Wilson, PhD, Endowed Scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was something I felt I could do that would really make a difference,\u201d said Wilson. The scholarship requires that the recipient be from New Hampshire, where Wilson lives with husband John Wilson, DMD, to help alleviate a shortage of physicians there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think a scholarship helps a student make a decision about what practice they can go into\u2026I think it\u2019s better if you don\u2019t owe a lot of money,\u201d said Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First-year medical student, and Wilson scholarship recipient, Leila Caplan\u2019s father was a first responder to the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001. But he can no longer work due to health problems stemming from that tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were worried about how I was going to afford medical school and whether I\u2019d have to push it off for a year,\u201d said Caplan. \u201cJust getting the scholarship and knowing that something was off my plate was amazing. It was something my parents were really worried about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sarkis
Endowed scholarship donors Sarkis Kechejian, MD\u201963, and Burton Golub, MD\u201965.
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Receiving his Kechejian scholarship helped tip the scales in second-year medical student Gurkerat Singh\u2019s decision to attend BU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I received this scholarship, I felt like the school really wanted me to come and it was one of the big factors for me to attend (BU) versus other schools,\u201d Singh said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haralambos Gavras, MD, emeritus professor of medicine and a primary mentor of graduate students in Graduate Medical Sciences, and his wife Irene Gavras, MD, both immigrated to the U.S. from their native Greece. The Alexis Gavras Graduate Scholarship fund they established is mainly intended for Greek students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you know a better reason (to donate to scholarships) than to help a kid find his way through science,\u201d he asked, nodding at recipient Konstantinos Kontodimas, a fourth-year PhD student who first came to Boston from Greece in 2016 to pursue a BU undergraduate degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d said Kontodimas. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the financial aspect, it\u2019s also emotional \u2013 the fact that I have people thinking about me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kontodimas also felt being a scholarship recipient was a building block for future grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a great steppingstone for someone who wants to go into academia,\u201d said Kontodimas. \u201cIn a world where grants are everything, this (scholarship) can be seen as a grant. It\u2019s a way of looking at somebody\u2019s efforts and recognizing them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they established their scholarship fund two years ago, Martha Skinner, MD, an emeritus professor of rheumatology who worked for 50 years at BU including as director of the Amyloidosis Center, and her husband Sumner Stone, MD\u201958, wanted to be quiet and unassuming donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stone said they felt there was no need for students to contact them to express gratitude. Still, they were happy to meet their scholarship recipient at the Keefer dinner. Michelle Surets, a second-year medical student from Brooklyn, wore a ribbon under her name tag that read \u201cFuture Doc.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased that we have this wonderful student, who is our named (scholarship) student, and we have the privilege of sitting with her and hearing about her life,\u201d said Skinner, who smiled at Surets and put a hand on her shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can\u2019t think of a better use of our money than to invest in someone and help them learn about medicine and contribute to the world,\u201d said Stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surets is the first in her family to attend medical school. The scholarship from Skinner and Stone was a big vote of confidence, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to meet people who have already\u2026been very successful and are willing to give back; (that) there\u2019s someone here who thinks that you can do it and will help you along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students say scholarships provide not only financial support but also a measure of validation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22573,"featured_media":132368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":"Giving"},"tags":[395,397,424,425],"bu-publication":[366],"medicine-article-category":[],"medicine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[376,384],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[390,368],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/132367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22573"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132367"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/132367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139615,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/132367\/revisions\/139615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132367"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=132367"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-article-category?post=132367"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-topic?post=132367"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=132367"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=132367"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=132367"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=132367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}