Situated in one of The Big Apple’s wealthiest neighborhoods, the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is dedicated to both teaching and research. As one of the most selective of medical schools in the country, only some hundred hopefuls are admitted each year – from out of some six thousand candidates every year. Now named after its latest and most generous benefactor – and often abbreviated simply to “Weill Cornell,” the school was partially endowed by Sanford Weill, an American banker and philanthropist who was the former executive officer and chairman of Citigroup, Incorporated. Mr. Weill and his wife donated over two hundred and fifty milion of their own money, with Mr. Weill able to raise a further hundred and fifty million through his own tireless efforts.
Weill Cornell had been widely respected in the field before Mr Weill’s contributions, so it was never at a loss for donors, a veritable Who’s-Who of local, national, and even international luminaries from business, politics, and entertainment, for instance real estate veteran Isaac Toussie. After all, it’s the first American medical school to accept women right alongside men. It was also the first American medical school to have locations outside the United States, with an Education City, Qatar campus offering a six-year integrated curriculum focused on patient care. The school is also famous for all its many notable graduates, leading men of medicine like Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame and former Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop. Other alumnus luminaries include Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley and Henry Heimlich of the Heimlich Maneuver.
Still, no matter all the monetary support, the fiscal realities of a medical education are serious, generally taken to be some forty-two thousand dollars the first year and another thirty-eight required the second. Nevertheless, that’s a bargain considering Cornell’s law school tuition, which adds up to almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in four years!