Carolyn Kavanagh, MD

The Class of 1973 (SUNY) renames its scholarship in honor of its founder. Prior to her 30-year medical school reunion, Carol Kavanagh, MD ’73 approached the Medical Alumni Association with an idea. She wanted her class to fund a scholarship for a current student and she thought their class reunion was just the vehicle to launch such an effort.  She and classmate Greg Threatte, MD ’73, who was then president of the
Medical Alumni Association sent out the original approach letter to establish the scholarship.  It’s a fitting tribute that the Class of 1973 has chosen to re-name their scholarship in honor of Dr. Kavanagh, who died in December 2006 after a long illness with cancer. “She really was the impetus behind the whole scholarship and was its largest donor,” says Dr. Threatte. “Renaming the scholarship for her is the perfect way for our class to keep her in our memory.”
Kavanagh, a pediatrician at the University of Rochester, was perhaps the friendliest member of the Class of 1973, says Threatte. “I don’t think there was a single person who didn’t like her,” he says.  That trait carried over to her practice of medicine. “Perhaps because of medical problems (cancer and myasthenia gravis) emerging and dogging Carol for almost her entire career, her empathy and kindness were more keen and recognizable, and the joy she got from being a doctor and medical educator more palpable than is the case
for most of us,” says Michael Weitzman, MD ’72, chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at New York University Medical School and a former colleague of Kavanagh’s at the University of Rochester.  Classmates and colleagues describe Kavanagh as encyclopedic in knowledge, everhungry for more knowledge, and exceptional at sharing that knowledge.  “She knew how to breathe life into teaching by telling literally hundreds of medical students and house officers of the children and families who she had cared for in the
past with problems similar to those they were confronted with in their own patients,” says Weitzman. “She was as good a physician in general and pediatrician in particular, as I have had the privilege to know. For me, Carol Kavanagh will always be synonomous with ‘doctor’ and ‘friend.’”