Dr. Ruth Gottesman, a longtime professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is making free tuition available to all students going forward. Dr. Ruth Gottesman’s donation is notable not only for its staggering size, but also because it is going to a medical institution in the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough.Credit...David Dee Delgado for The New York Times By Joseph Goldstein Feb. 26, 2024Updated 10:51 a.m. ET The 93-year-old widow of a Wall Street financier has donated $1 billion to a Bronx medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with instructions that the gift be used to cover tuition for all students going forward. The donor, Dr. Ruth Gottesman, is a former professor at Einstein, where she studied learning disabilities, developed a screening test and ran literacy programs. It is one of the largest charitable donations to an educational institution in the United States and most likely the largest to a medical school. The fortune came from her late husband, David Gottesman, known as Sandy, who was a protégé of Warren Buffett and had made an early investment in Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate Mr. Buffett built. The donation is notable not only for its staggering size, but also because it is going to a medical institution in the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough. The Bronx has a high rate of premature deaths and ranks as the unhealthiest county in New York. Over the past generation, a number of billionaires have given hundreds of millions of dollars to better-known medical schools and hospitals in Manhattan, the city’s wealthiest borough. Dr. Gottesman said her donation would enable new doctors to begin their careers without medical school debt, which often exceeds $200,000. She also hoped it would broaden the student body to include people who could not otherwise afford to go to medical school. While her husband ran an investment firm, First Manhattan, Dr. Gottesman had a long career at Einstein, a well-regarded medical school, starting in 1968, when she took a job as director of psychoeducational services. She has long been on Einstein’s board of trustees and is currently the chair. In recent years, she has become close friends with Dr. Philip Ozuah, the pediatrician who oversees the medical college and its affiliated hospital, Montefiore Medical Center, as the chief executive officer of the health system. That friendship and trust loomed large as she contemplated what to do with the money her husband had left her. In an interview on Friday at the Einstein campus in the Morris Park neighborhood, Dr. Ozuah and Dr. Gottesman spoke about the donation, how it came together and what it would mean for Einstein medical students. In the weeks that followed, Dr. Ozuah began making daily house calls — in full protective gear — to check in on the couple as Mr. Gottesman recovered. “That’s how the friendship evolved,” he said. “I spent probably every day for about three weeks, visiting them in Rye.” About three years ago, Dr. Ozuah asked Dr. Gottesman to head the medical school’s board of trustees. She had done the job before, but given her age, she was surprised. The gesture reminded her of the fable about the lion and the mouse, she told Dr. Ozuah at the time, explaining that when the lion spares the mouse’s life, the mouse tells him, “Maybe someday I’ll be helpful to you.” In the story, the lion laughs haughtily. “But Phil didn’t go ‘ha, ha, ha,’” she noted with a smile. When she focused on the bequest, she realized immediately what she wanted to do, she recalled. “I wanted to fund students at Einstein so that they would receive free tuition,” she said. There was enough money to do that in perpetuity, she said. Over the years, she had interviewed dozens of prospective Einstein medical students. Tuition is more than $59,000 a year, and many graduated with crushing medical school debt. According to the school, nearly 50 percent of its students owed more than $200,000 after graduating. At most other New York City medical schools, less than 25 percent of new doctors owed that much. Almost half of Einstein’s first-year medical students are New Yorkers, and nearly 60 percent are women. About 48 percent of current medical students at Einstein are white, 29 percent are Asian, 11 percent are Hispanic and 5 percent are Black. Not only would future students be able to embark on their careers without the debt burden, but she hoped that her donation would also enable a wider pool of aspiring doctors to apply to medical school. “We have terrific medical students, but this will open it up for many other students whose economic status is such that they wouldn’t even think about going to medical school,” she said. “That’s what makes me very happy about this gift,” she added. “I have the opportunity not just to help Phil, but to help Montefiore and Einstein in a transformative way — and I’m just so proud and so humbled — both — that I could do it.” Dr. Gottesman went to see Dr. Ozuah in December to tell him that she would be making a major gift. She reminded him of the lion and mouse story. This, she explained, was the mouse’s moment. “If someone said, ‘I’ll give you a transformative gift for the medical school,’ what would you do?” she asked. There were probably three things, Dr. Ozuah said. “One,” he began, “you could have education be free —” “That’s what I want to do,” she said. He never mentioned the other ideas. Dr. Gottesman sometimes wonders what her late husband would have thought of her decision. “I hope he’s smiling and not frowning,” she said with a chuckle. “But he gave me the opportunity to do this, and I think he would be happy — I hope so.” Einstein will not be the first medical school to eliminate tuition. In 2018, New York University announced it would begin offering free tuition to medical students and saw a surge in applications. The Name Dr. Gottesman was reluctant to attach her name to her donation. “Nobody needs to know,” Dr. Ozuah recalled her saying at first. But Dr. Ozuah insisted that others might find her life inspiring. “Here’s somebody who is totally dedicated to the welfare of others and wants no accolades, no recognition,” Dr. Ozuah said. Dr. Ozuah noted that the going price for getting your name on a medical school or hospital was perhaps a fifth of Dr. Gottesman’s donation. Cornell Medical College and New York Hospital now include the surname of Sanford Weill, the former head of Citigroup. New York University’s medical center was renamed for Ken Langone, a co-founder of Home Depot. Both men donated hundreds of millions of dollars. But it is a condition of Dr. Gottesman’s gift that the Einstein College of Medicine not change its name. Albert Einstein, the physicist who developed the theory of relativity, agreed to confer his name on the medical school, which opened in 1955. The name, she noted, could not be beat. “We’ve got the gosh darn name — we’ve got Albert Einstein.”
Typical story, guy makes a pile of money, dies or gets divorced, and the wife proceeds to squander it on some woke virtue-signaling bullshit. Why is it bullshit? Because making med school free for everyone nationwide would not increase the annual supply of new doctors by even one single MD. The rate limiter is med school places, which have barely increased in forty years, precisely because the AMA guild (of which this lady is a member) puts a hard cap on the number of spots, in order to keep doctor salaries sky-high.
What the heck is "med school places"? Are you referring to the number of existing schools? BTW whether it's woke or not, what's she's doing is more exemplary than most billionaires who give most of it to their spoiled children, who do nothing but "squander" it on themselves.
%% LOL that's pretty blunt+ I'm ALSO against woke -broke bullspit; but still sounds like a good idea. WHY?? Docs could go some where besides USA. Assume ........ they would want to ,maybe ??. In a perfect word ,she could have also given to church + synagog +a little bit to law school. Also on the news a lady called up a doc and asked ''my daughter thinks she is a cat what do I do?? Doctor said see a vet LOL ''+ that mom sued him. Amazing blame shift on a doctor
what the heck is rate limiter? she did something good. med school is not limited to medical doctors, researchers and scientists too. "get out there, earn a keep and give back", that's what my high school teacher taught me, still working on it.
Admit it you see anti-white (wokey dokey nonsense) when all the woman is doing is helping some, who otherwise would not think about going to medical school because of the upfront and long term cost. Story mentioned the husband left the money to her. But its not ok to you what she does with it. LOL
Sad but true. The AMA is just another lobbying group which exists to increase their member's salaries. The AMA is a joke just like group that controls how many Pharmacy Schools can be built. I remember in 1992 when I applied to Pharmacy School there were 5 in all of the US. Medical Schools are the same. In fact the AMA would rather import doctors from outside the US than ever build another medical school again.
Hmm, I happened to belong to class of 1992 and that's a tough one to swallow. As a premed student myself, I can remember there were a lot more than just 5 pharmacy schools in the US. Even worse, to say that there aren't enough of med schools today is really a joke. On the contrary, there are way too many. That's why you have so many incompetent doctors and why the medical lawsuits are rising year after year. In fact, back in the 90s, every major universities across the nation offered medical program along with their own university hospitals. And there's at least 1 reputable university hosital in every state. Lastly, most of these universities that have med schools will offer degrees in nursing and pharmD as well.