Dr. Kuhn has established an endowed scholarship fund to ease the financial burdens of medical students.

More than sixty years ago, shortly after Richard Kuhn, MD, ’38, received his degree, his mother gathered his tuition receipts and tucked them away. Dr. Kuhn, a family practitioner who continues an active practice, seeing patients five mornings each week, has shared these “artifacts” with alum notes. The receipts, most for $94.33, total just over $730. What seems at first a remarkable bargain represented a sizable sum during a period when Americans struggled through the Great Depression and $94 had considerable purchasing power. To help pay for his medical education, Dr. Kuhn recalls working “Fridays and Saturdays every week at the local A&P.” 

A few years after medical school graduation, Dr. Kuhn, like many of his Wayne classmates, was in the armed forces. A flight surgeon during the Second World War, he received 25 medals and citations for his distinguished service in North Africa, Italy, Germany, Romania, Hungary and Russia, including the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Air Medal. 

In many ways, Dr. Kuhn reflects the personal qualities and social values of his generation. Having experienced the seminal events of the 20^th century, those who came of age during the 1930s and fought World War II in the 1940s fueled the nation’s growth for much of the second half of the century. 

Shaped by the challenges and successes of his life experience and mindful of the financial burdens carried by medical students and recent graduates, Dr. Kuhn has endowed a School of Medicine scholarship fund. Appropriately, awards from The Richard F. Kuhn, MD, Endowed Scholarship Fund will be based on financial need, scholarship, volunteer service and leadership.

Tuition payment receipt issued to Richard Kuhn in 1937 shows tuition payment of approximately $94 per term.