Hearing of wedded couples giving back to their alma maters is always a heartwarming story. It pulls on one’s heartstrings, even more, when the school is where the lovebirds both met and married.
This beautiful order of events is the love story of Drs. Toni and David Wilkes, who are now paying it forward to the Lewis Katz School of Medicine — Temple University’s medical school.
According to Temple Health News, the 1982 graduates have donated $2 million to the school. The intent behind their gift is to establish an endowed scholarship fund for students underrepresented in medicine.
“There’s deep purpose in this scholarship,” said Dr. Toni Wilkes. “In addition to what it means to us, it’s a thank-you to Temple for giving us a superb education.”
Dr. David Wilkes added: “Our scholarship is an enactment of principles and priorities that we — and Temple — prize.”
A Thank You From The Lewis Katz School of Medicine
“We are so grateful to David and Toni Wilkes. They are a gift – and they’ve made a gift of exceptional potential and power,” said Amy J. Goldberg, MD, FACS, Interim Dean and George S. Peters, MD and Louise C. Peters Chair and Professor of Surgery at the Katz School of Medicine, and Surgeon-in-Chief of Temple University Health System. “David and Toni know there are scores of talented, ambitious, selfless young people in population groups sparsely represented in medicine who want to be in medicine — and would be wonderful in medicine. Health and wellness prosper when there are natural connections, relatabilities, between physicians and the patients they serve and the scholarship that Toni and David created tangibly furthers these aims.”
The Wilkes Scholarship
Candidates that will be considered for the Wilkes Scholarship will be Katz medical students in financial need who belong to the Student National Medical Association, a national organization the Wilkeses were once a part of for BlPOC students, according to Temple Health News.
