Scholarships

The Dr. Karl Stockhausen Memorial Scholarship was established to assist medical students who have a strong dedication to the service of others and/or who have overcome, or continue to have, financial, physical, or cultural challenges on their way to becoming a physician in the service of others.

Dr. Karl Stockhausen wanted to spend his life in the service of healing others, especially in third-world countries. He attended the American University of the Caribbean (AUC), and he twice joined surgical teams providing health care in Honduras. He also worked for three months in La Parroquia, Guatemala, assisting in free healthcare clinics for the indigenous community.

As part of his medical training, Stockhausen completed a clinical rotation in infectious diseases in Mumbai, India, a surgical and OB/GYN rotation, and a rotation in an HIV outpatient health clinic in London, UK, and several rotations in New York City. He showed a particular passion for learning about international health systems and made it a personal goal to have a hand in improving global health care.

He was 24 years old and in medical school when he was afflicted by Acute Multifocal Posterior Placoid Pigment Epitheliopathy (AMPPPE), a rare eye disease that left him with blind spots in both eyes. This condition qualified him for special provisions in medical school, such as unlimited time to take tests, but he refused to make use of the exceptional treatment. His condition did not deter him; he kept on in medical school despite the handicap.

He was a fighter. He was diagnosed with cancer at age 26, but Karl finished and graduated from medical school with honors while battling the cancer for two years without complaint. He had secured a prestigious Emergency Medicine residency at Einstein, Jacoby Medical Hospital in the Bronx, New York. Unfortunately, his cancer worsened, and he was unable to begin his residency.

The cancer took his life, but it did not diminish his indomitable spirit or will to be of service to others.

Even with the eye disease and cancer, he was able to donate his corneas and gave sight to a man in Battle Creek, Michigan, and a woman in New Milford, New Jersey. Having been treated at the Melanoma Clinic of the University of Michigan Cancer Center, he also donated his body to the UoM Medical School. His choice to be a donor was the ultimate gift, which affected the lives of the medical students who learned from his body, and consequently the patients that those students treated when they became doctors.

Dr. Karl Stockhausen had a passion for helping others and fighting overwhelming odds to accomplish his goal. He was a driven and dedicated individual who always found time to give, even after tragically losing his life to cancer at the young age of 28.

This Scholarship for medical students currently attending AUC is set up through the DeVry Education Group to give assistance to students who most emulate the spirit of Dr. Karl Stockhausen, and/or have continued to prevail despite trials, setbacks and challenges. A total of up to $15,000 in scholarships will be awarded annually to up to three AUC students and disbursed beginning with the September semester.