Title:Alumnus Replays His Education Through Scholarship Fund

As a young boy growing up in Washington, D.C., Murray Hammerman, M.D. (M’60) thought medical school would be out of reach for him financially.  “I grew up in D.C., in a single-parent household with four kids. We did not have any extra anything,” Hammerman recalls.

But — seemingly out of nowhere — two successful, yet distant, uncles stepped in and covered the entire cost of his medical education at Georgetown. Seeking to give other young, bright students the same opportunity, Hammerman and his wife, Marilyn, have established two scholarship funds to support aspiring Georgetown medical student.

Since 1980, the Hammermans have awarded nearly 100 scholarships to needy students through the two funds: the Herman and Sam Hammerman Memorial Scholarship Fund, named for his benefactors, and the Marilyn and Murray Hammerman Scholarship Fund. Upon interviewing potential scholarship recipients, he looks for students who reflect the need and the drive that he had as a young man.

“As a young Jewish student who grew up as a very poor boy, there was nothing available to me then,” says Hammerman, now an ophthalmologist in Rockville, Maryland. “I always felt that Georgetown gave me an excellent education and the opportunity to do exactly what I wanted with my life. Now it’s my turn to give back.”

For more information on establishing a scholarship or other planned giving questions, please call 800-347-8067, e-mail plannedgiving@georgetown.edu, or fill out our information request form.