Gifts Totaling More Than $15M Will Benefit Students
Alumni and friends of the Geisel School of Medicine recently committed more than $15 million in philanthropic gifts to support medical student scholarships, a mental health and wellness initiative, a relief fund for students facing unexpected financial hardships, and other top priorities of the medical school. The generosity of these donors and many more is helping Geisel fulfill its vision for educating complete physicians—which is one of four unifying themes within Geisel’s $200-million fundraising campaign, part of Dartmouth College’s The Call to Lead campaign.
Geisel seeks to prepare the “complete physicians” that our world needs—physicians who provide medically excellent, highly compassionate, culturally sensitive care, and who work to improve health systems. Through its curriculum, thought leadership, and student programming and supportive services, Geisel will set the standard nationally for medical education and for creating a healthy, equitable learning environment. To learn more about this vision and how you can help, visit geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/campaign.
Milestone Gift Supports Scholarships
A $10 million gift commitment from a Dartmouth medical school alumnus is the third largest gift in the school’s history and the largest commitment received to date by Geisel as part of The Call to Lead, Dartmouth’s comprehensive fundraising campaign. Combined with a commitment of approximately $1 million from a second alumnus, the gifts will add $11 million to the school’s scholarship endowment, significantly increasing financial aid for medical students and advancing progress toward Geisel’s campaign goal of raising $20 million in new scholarship support for medical students. Both gifts will be fulfilled through bequests. When received, these gifts will establish endowments that together are expected to provide more than $500,000 a year in additional scholarship aid to Geisel students—a nearly 15 percent increase in the total amount available today. As the endowments grow over time, so, too, will their annual distributions. Read more…
Addressing Medical Students’ Mental Health Needs
A $2 million gift from a Dartmouth College alumnus and his spouse will provide essential funds for a new comprehensive mental health and wellness program for medical students at Geisel. The Healthy Students, Healthy Physicians program, launched in late 2019, is a top priority for Geisel and is part of The Call to Lead campaign. Healthy Students, Healthy Physicians will provide a variety of trainings for medical students, faculty, and staff and—most importantly—mental health screening and increased access to counseling for students at no cost to them. This includes the recent addition of a mental health counselor with experience in race-based trauma and the mental health impacts of structural racism, supplementing the counselors currently on staff at the Counseling Center at Dartmouth’s Dick’s House who also have such expertise and are available to medical students. The gift will support further expansion of Geisel’s wellness and resiliency programming as well. Read more…
The Gift of Fiscal Flexibility
Unrestricted gifts to the Geisel School of Medicine provide support for all aspects of the medical school, including student scholarships, curriculum development, the recruitment and retention of the highest caliber faculty, the creation of innovative programs and state-of-the-art facilities, and student wellness and coaching programs. This past spring, an incredibly generous donor established charitable gift annuities totaling $4 million in unrestricted support to Geisel. Gifts like these offer the fiscal flexibility Geisel needs to seize opportunities, address new challenges, and respond to the demands of providing the next generation of doctors and scientists with the best education and training possible, allowing Geisel to be responsive to today’s rapidly changing healthcare environment.
Educating Physicians in the Economics of Medicine
Concerned that the economics of medicine was unintentionally ceded from doctors to corporations and politicians over the last several decades, and seeking to accomplish non-politicized healthcare reform that puts patients first and values provider services, Faith G. Golding and Peter J. Linden, MD, directors of the Faith Golding Foundation, Inc., established the Faith G. Golding and Peter J. Linden, MD, Endowed MD-MBA Scholarship at Geisel. The scholarship supports medical students enrolled in Dartmouth’s joint MD-MBA program, which is committed to educating future physicians who possess expertise in both the complexities of medicine and its business management, and who will be able to develop innovative solutions and lead change from within the discipline of healthcare.
Alumni Give Support and Solace
When COVID-19 struck, some medical students were particularly hard hit financially. Their partners or their parents lost jobs. Their childcare was disrupted. Abruptly displaced from clinical rotations, they had to find new housing. Geisel quickly established a student relief fund with 100 percent of the money going to students with critical financial need. Alumni Daniel Lucey D ’77, MED ’81 and Bonnie Henderson D ’89, MED ’93 provided the lead gifts—and, through their generosity, they provided all Geisel students with the reassuring knowledge that their school and its alumni would never let them struggle through difficult times alone.