St. Vincent's Medical Center pledges more than $1 million to the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University

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Sep 03, 2013, 09:00 ET

HAMDEN, Conn. , Sept. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- St. Vincent's Medical Center made two pledges totaling $1,050,000 to the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University.

The medical center pledged $1 million to establish the medical school's first endowed chair, The St. Vincent's Medical Center Endowed Chair in Medical Sciences, which will be held by Stephen Wikel, senior associate dean for scholarship and professor and chair of the Department of Medical Sciences. Quinnipiac will match St. Vincent's gift, creating a $2 million fund in perpetuity.

"I am honored to be the first holder of The St. Vincent's Medical Center Endowed Chair in Medical Sciences, which attests to the commitment of our principal clinical partner to the School of Medicine," Wikel said. "This gift will be used to further innovative educational initiatives, seminars and student-focused basic, transitional and clinical research, and other activities to enrich the student experience."

St. Vincent's also pledged $50,000 to create the St. Vincent's Medical Center Primary Care Scholarship, which will be awarded to medical students who intend to pursue careers in primary care medicine and have demonstrated a commitment to community service. Thomas Azeizat, of Yonkers, N.Y., and Ryan N. Barnicle, of Newington, Conn., are the first St. Vincent's Medical Center Scholars.

Dr. Stuart Marcus, president of St. Vincent's Medical Center, said, "We're pleased to partner with the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine to educate and train the next generation of physicians. These gifts demonstrate our confidence in the school's future, its faculty and the students who will study there."

Dr. Bruce Koeppen, founding dean of the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, said, "The School of Medicine is honored by the generous gift of an endowed chair and their commitment of an annual contribution to the school's scholarship fund."

St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, Conn. is a 473-bed community teaching and referral hospital with a Level II trauma center and a 76-bed inpatient psychiatric facility. St. Vincent's provides a full range of inpatient and outpatient services and more than 50 specialty and subspecialty medical and surgical disciplines.

Quinnipiac is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution located 90 minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university enrolls 6,500 full-time undergraduate and 2,500 graduate students in 58 undergraduate and more than 20 graduate programs of study in its School of Business and Engineering, School of Communications, School of Education, School of Health Sciences, School of Law, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, School of Nursing and College of Arts and Sciences.