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 the 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 at the expense of risking their family financial situation.  With your generous donation, we can help, at least, few of them and 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.

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.

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.

SAMS Scholarhip Committee 

Committee Chair

Tarek Kteleh, MD

Rheumatology fellow, St. Louis, MO

tarek_ktela@hotmail.com

Committee Members

Thabet alsheikh, MD                        Zaher Sahloul, MD                   Nasser Ani, MD

SAMS past president                           SAMS vice president                  SAMS Northeast Chapter President                                                                 

alsheikh@bellsouth.net                      sahloul@yahoo.com                   nanimd@aol.com

Abdulrahman  Amine, MD              Elie Azrak, MD                             Imad Khadra, MD

Neurosurgeon, Chicago, IL              Cardiologist, St. Louis, MO         Pulmonologist, Lafayatte, IN

aamine39@hotmail.com                    eazrak@earthlink.net                shami@myway.com

Bassel Atassi

Internal medicine resident, Chicago, IL

mb_atassi@yahoo.com