Announcement of the SAMS Syrian medical graduate scholarship

[Milad Kawas Cale]

From: Tarek Kteleh, MD 12/1/2007

Chair of Syrian medical graduate scholarship committee at SAMS

Dear Donor,

My name is Tarek Kteleh, a rheumatology fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. I have the honor to serve as the chair of the new and promising Syrian Medical Graduate Scholarship Committee under the auspices of the Syrian-American Medical Society (SAMS).

I am writing to you today asking for your generous support to raise the funds for this scholarship. The goal of this scholarship is to financially help Syrian medical graduates who want to come to the US until they start their residency. All the donations to this scholarship are tax deductible.

As you know, one of the biggest obstacles those prospective, promising graduates face is finances; and because of this, many opportunities are lost. Every year, several talented Syrian graduates avoid taking the risk of coming to the US due to financial difficulties. In addition, many others will eventually manage to come to the US but at the expense of risking their family financial situation. With your generous donation, we can help at least few of them and we may be able to increase the number of the Syrian graduates who are willing to take the lengthy way that you and I both experienced.

You may still remember the tough days you experienced when you came to the US applying for your specialty. You might not forget those people who offered or extended their help to you during that rough time. Well, now it’s your turn to give back and to give others the same opportunity.

We are committed to honesty and transparency and will follow the selection criteria outlined in attachment (1). Your generosity will be recognized in SAMS publications.


Please make your check payable to: SAMS Foundation/Scholarship Fund and mail it to the following address:

Syrian American Medical Society

Syrian medical graduate scholarship committee

PO Box 1015 Canfield, OH 44406

Please feel free to contact me or any of the committee members with questions, feedback and suggestions.

My sincere regards,

Tarek Kteleh, MD.

Tarek_ktela@hotmail.com

Attachment # 1

The selection criteria;

Eligibility for the scholarship entails that a candidate must meet all the following criteria

1. To be a Syrian medical graduate

2. To have an ECFMG certificate

3. To have a US visa

4. To have scores higher than 88% in both USMLE step 1 and 2.

5. To have good English skills as Judged by a personal interview with a member of the committee or a SAMS member who is delegated by the committee for such purpose.

6. To be in financial need.

7. At the time of the interview, the applicant must provide original documents to prove that he/she met the above criteria, and sign a release of information form that enable us to verify them with the ECFMG.

To prioritize the applicants for the selection process in case the applications exceeded the available funds, we will use a score system that depends on the USMLE step 1 and step 2 scores, the medical graduation average score, the English skills and a personal interview.



The scholarship amount of up to $5000 is paid in one or more installments.

If the physician is selected to receive the scholarship, then he/she has to pay back the same amount of money with no interest using equal monthly payments over an 18-month period starting 3 months after the beginning of his/her residency.

This will certainly assure the longevity and the availability of such fund for other candidates. We certainly hope that those who benefit from it will be dedicated future contributors.

For more information about the scholarship you can visit SAMS website; sams-usa.net

[burhan]

SAMS scholarship committee

Chair

Tarek Kteleh, MD
Rheumatology fellow, St. Louis, MO
tarek_ktela@hotmail.com

Members

Thabet Alsheikh, MD
SAMS past president
alsheikh@bellsouth.net

Zaher Sahloul, MD
SAMS vice president
sahloul@yahoo.com

Nasser Ani, MD
SAMS North east chapter president
nanimd@aol.com

Abdulrahman Amine, MD. Neurosurgeon, Chicago, IL
aamine39@hotmail.com

Elie Azrak, MD Cardiologist, St. Louis, MO
eazrak@earthlink.net

Imad Khadra, MD Pulmonologist, Lafayette, IN
shami@myway.com

Bassel Atassi, Internal medicine resident, Chicago, IL.
mb_atassi@yahoo.com

[burhan]

We are planning to receive applications starting 1/2/08 with deadline of 2/15/07 for sending the applications.
Our plan is to deliver the scholarships by the end of February/08. The number of scholarships available depends on the fund we raise. However, it is expected to be between 4-8 scholarships for this year. For more information, you can contact the chair of the committee or any of the other members.
Please inform every Syrian medical graduate who may be eligible for the scholarship about it so he/she doesn't miss the chance of applying.
You can contact the chair of the committee or any of the other committee members for more information.

[Mazen Hasan]

Jazakum Allah kyra for this nice project,
What is your plan for fundraising the money, how we can invite people to donate.

[burhan]

We are planning to contact them by email and later on by follow up phone calls. We are awaiting to receive the SAMS member contact list soon.
Your help is appreciated in this issue. We already have committements of ~15000-20000$ from few members.

[Mazen Hasan]

Alsalm Alikom,
On Face book there is an application called causes which allow any non for profit organization to fund raise money.
Any member on face book can apply, however I think they will ask specific questions about this organization. I think some body from the admins should apply.
I think this will provide an easy way for people to donate online.

We have a group on Face book called "Syrian Physician Abroad" which we started more than one month ago. we have now about 64 members and the number is increasing every day. We can encourage them to donate for this scolarship
You can visit our group on face book at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6568410747.

[burhan]

Documents needed for the application:



Dear Applicant,

The following are the documents you need to send to the committee if you are eligible for the scholarship:

1. A copy of the medical school diploma (Arabic and translated English one)
2. A copy of the ECFMG certificate
3. Copies of the USMLE step 1, 2 and CS exam score report
4. Current CV (You can use the ERAS one)
5. Personal photo.
6. A copy of a medical school document stating your rank in the graduation year/patch. (As example: Dr…. was ranked the 25th out of 200 graduates in the graduation patch of August/06)
7. A copy of a US visa/I-94

If you don’t have all the necessary documents ready right now, you can still apply sending all the available documents as long as you are expected to be eligible by 2/15/08. However, you have to provide the rest of the documents before Feb/15th –The deadline for the current match period scholarship interviews-

We will conduct the interviews even if you don’t have all the required documents available by the time of the interview as long as you expect to be fully eligible for the scholarship by Feb/15th.

Please note that we need you to bring the original documents at the time of the interview.

The interviews will be conducted by one of the committee members based on the geographic location of the applicant. If there was no committee member available in the applicant location, we will utilize one of the well-known SAMS members in that geographic area to perform this task.

Please scan the documents and send them to the following email address:
Tarek_ktela@hotmail.com.
If you don’t have a scanner, you can fax them to the following fax number:
618 628 8372

You can contact me directly at tarek_ktela@hotmail.com for any questions.

Tarek Kteleh,

[Rawan]

1. To be a Syrian medical graduate

2. To have an ECFMG certificate

3. To have a US visa

4. To have scores higher than 88% in both USMLE step 1 and 2.

5. To have good English skills as Judged by a personal interview with a member of the committee or a SAMS member who is delegated by the committee for such purpose.

6. To be in financial need.

7. At the time of the interview, the applicant must provide original documents to prove that he/she met the above criteria, and sign a release of information form that enable us to verify them with the ECFMG.

So you don't want Syrian nationality, you just want a Syrian graduation !
Even if the student doesnt have the nationality, you'll help him !

[Mazen Hasan]

Any news about the scholarship results ???
are they going to be announced...

[burhan]

SAMS will soon place an update and an official report about the fund raising and this cycle loan recipients including their number and the amount of the money deliverd.