$3M Gift to Endow IU Med School Scholarship
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA more than $3 million gift will establish a scholarship for native Hoosiers to attend the Indiana University School of Medicine. The donation is from Ralph Faucett's estate. He spent more than 30 years as a U.S. Navy physician, retiring in 1974 as a rear admiral. February 4, 2015
News Release
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (January 26, 2015) – Indiana University School of Medicine alumnus and decorated U.S. Navy officer Ralph Eugene Faucett has provided more than $3 million through his estate to establish the Ralph E. and Elizabeth C. Faucett Scholarship to support future generations of IU medical students.
The only requirement of the scholarship — one of the 10 largest at the IU School of Medicine — is that the recipient be an Indiana native, like Dr. Faucett himself.
Born in 1916, Dr. Faucett was the quintessential Indiana farm boy. Throughout his childhood, he worked alongside his father in the fields on the family farm near Milton, Ind.
After earning a bachelor's degree in physiology and medicine, he enrolled in the IU School of Medicine, graduating in 1942. He then embarked on what would become a 32-year career as a Navy physician.
Dr. Faucett served with the 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division as a surgeon during the height of World War II. He crossed the South Pacific during some of the most intense fighting of the war, caring for soldiers throughout the Mariana Islands and Okinawa campaigns as well as the post-war occupation of Japan.
His unit was deployed to Nagasaki after the atomic bombings to serve as peacekeeper forces.
Dr. Faucett returned to Japan in 1962, serving as the chief of medicine for the naval hospital in Yokosuka. He also completed Deep Sea Diving School and Submarine School and served as senior medical officer for a submarine squadron before he was named director of submarine medicine at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Laboratory.
He retired from active duty in 1974 with the rank of rear admiral, having been in command of multiple naval hospitals throughout the country.
After his death on Jan. 17, 2014, he was laid to rest beside his family in the cemetery at Zion’s Lutheran Church in Pershing, Ind.
Source: Indiana University School of Medicine