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Scholarship Benefits Premed Students
Over the past 10 years, Washington College has been proud to maintain a 90 percent acceptance rate for its premedical graduates, many of whom have gone on for medical degrees from Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland, Georgetown University, George Washington University and other medical schools in the region.
Now, with a gift of $400,000 from the Irma S. Heck Trust, the College's premed students will have a greater incentive to dedicate their lives to advancing the health and welfare of others.
A new scholarship for premedical students is named in honor of Dr. Leroy Savin Heck, a 1925 graduate of Washington College and former chief of staff of the Northern West Chester Hospital Center in Mt. Kisco, NY. The gift will be doubled by the Hodson Trust Challenge.
After graduating from Washington College, Leroy Heck pursued a degree in pharmacy from Baltimore City College and a degree in medicine from the University of Maryland. He joined the staff of Northern West Chester Hospital Center in 1930 as a general surgeon. He was director of surgery and chief of staff from 1945 to 1963 and was made honorary director of surgery in 1964. He continued practicing until his retirement in 1980. While on staff at the hospital, he also served as medical director for the Reader's Digest Association.
Dr. Heck was a founding member of the University of Maryland Surgical Society and a former member of the Medical Advisory Board of the American Red Cross, Planned Parenthood and the Advisory Board of Manhattan Savings Bank. As founder of the Mt. Kisco Ambulance Company, he was named the Mt. Kisco Citizen of the Year in 1975.
"My father believed that education was the way to realize one's dreams," said Dr. Heck's daughter, Susan Heck, of Pasadena, CA. "As a young man of modest means from Baltimore, he knew he was lucky to be sent to college. He and my mother would be gladdened to know that their work over the decades will now help other young people on their journey."
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