FITTING
TRIBUTES
Gifts from alumni are used to support research, educate future doctors or contribute to the College’s development. Many are made in memory of a loved one, to honour someone special or acknowledge achievement. We talked to some alumni about their giving stories. IN APPRECIATION
Establishing new scholarships “I support the College because of affection and appreciation,” says Dr Richard Nora (Class of 1980), Medical Director of Oncology Services, OSF St Anthony Medical Center, Rockford, Illnois and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Illnois, and generous donor to RCSI over many years. “Firstly, RCSI and Ireland gave me an opportunity. I was not a refugee fleeing oppression, as some of my classmates were, but a ‘blow-in’ pursuing a privilege that I was hardly worthy of. I cannot overstate the number of people, classmates, their families, friends, and acquaintances, who helped me, nor could I exaggerate their extraordinary kindness and generosity towards me. My support will never be a commercial recompense for my career, for I could never repay what they did for me.” Richard and his wife Lucille have established a merit-based scholarship to celebrate outstanding academic achievement. When asked what prompted this particular gift, Richard is clear that his own experience inspired it: “I was privileged at Surgeons to be amongst a Dr Richard and Lucille community of gifted teachers and Nora classmates who demonstrated to me, each other, and to patients what healthcare is all about. They were incredibly diverse in world views, traditions, manners, and faiths yet always more collegial than competitive, co-committed to our goal of becoming healers. That sort of community is rare and precious, and not universally found at or created in medical schools.” Working all over the world, classmates get to meet rarely, but despite that, the bonds from those formative years have, if anything, become stronger. “My classmates inspired me then and continue to do so now, they are gifts to medicine and the world from Asia to America, and at home in Ireland. I hope I live up to them.” The ways in which RCSI has demonstrated that it is committed to, and
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effective at, transforming health care education at home and abroad is also a key factor in making such a generous gift. “I remember being jeered once at the Intervarsity basketball tournament in Galway as “York Street Tech”! I wish that those wits could come see York Street today! Contributing to the College does not just say thanks or preserve happy memories, it helps build the faculties, the student body, and the facilities that we can be very proud of today.” In 2017 the first Consilio Manuque Scholarships named for Richard & Lucille Nora and John & Ann Murphy were awarded to students Lisa Mulvey and David Joyce respectively.
LEADING THE WAY
Honouring cherished classmates In 2017, as his 35th reunion approached, Dr Nezam Afdhal (Nid), and his wife, fellow RCSI alumna, Dr Clare Tempany Afdhal were very much looking forward to seeing colleagues from their Class of 1981. They were also extremely conscious of those classmates who would not be with them to mark this special occasion. “I think as you get older, and you look back on your own career and achievements and those of your friends and colleagues, you realise that there
The Class of 1981
