Dr. Green's Gift for Medical Student Scholarships

Once in an informal conversation with his friend, Richard Johnson, MD, who served as President of this Medical Society in 1978 (and was a long time editor of this magazine), he asked for advice on organizations to which he might leave the remainder of his trust. Among the organizations they discussed was the William E. Dochterman Medical Student Scholarship Program1. Dr. Green died in 1988 and his wife, Pearl OsofskyGreen, passed away in October 2006. Just three days before Christmas, SSVMS received a check for $100,000 as our share of the remainder of Dr. Green's estate.

Since 1967, our Medical Society has awarded 156 scholarships to deserving medical students who have attended or graduated from high schools in El Dorado, Sacramento and Yolo Counties (a requirement for scholarship consideration). A number of those students have returned to establish their medical practices here and have become members of our Society.

In 1987, the Scholarship Fund was renamed in honor of William E. Dochterman, who served as executive director of the Society for 25 years. It was Bill Dochterman who helped establish the program with funds left over from the Society's "Salk Vaccine Campaign Against Polio" when we inoculated our entire community of 250,000 people over two very busy weekends in 1962.

In the 30 years since our first scholarships, we have received some memorial gifts and a few small bequests to the Scholarship Fund, but our endowment has not grown as much as we would like. Dr. Green's gift will add a hefty amount to the fund, and we hope it will inspire other members to follow the lead of Dr. Green.

bsandberg@ssvms.org

1. For more information and scholarship applications visit http://www.ssvms.org/scholar.asp. The scholarship program is one program in the Society's Community Service, Education and Research Fund, a separate tax exempt 501(c)(3) corporation see http://www.ssvms.org/cserf.asp.