Scholarship named after former resident surgeon

A University of Toledo resident surgeon who recently died of cancer is slated to be honored with a scholarship in his name and an honorary completion of his residency.

Cyrus Chan, who battled stage IV colon cancer for the past year, died on April 21 at the age of 39.

Over the past month, 337 donors raised over $40,000 for the Cyrus Chan Legacy Scholarship on GoFundMe — exceeding its initial goal of $25,000.

“We want to honor his track record of accomplishments with an honorary completion before the time that is traditionally required to accomplish that, because he may not be able to participate in the final year of training,” said Thomas Schwann, the Interim Chair of the Department of Surgery and chief of staff at UTMC, just before Chan’s death.

Chan, who was a general surgery resident UTMC, was supposed to finish his residency in July this year.

Schwann said Chan will be given an honorary completion at the same time the chief residents will celebrate the end of their training program.

“We typically have a celebration of our chief residents finishing their rigorous training program at the middle of June … it is during that celebration that we hope to be able to focus on Cyrus and shine the spotlight on his accomplishments,” Schwann said.

The initial target was to raise $25,000 for the scholarship in honor of Chan but the goal was later revised to $50,000 in light of to the level of support received.

“The first scholarship was for residents like him, but the medical community surpassed what we thought we would get. So we came up with a second one for medical students because that was his main drive. Even though he did teach the residents, he would really like teaching the medical students,” said Stephen Stanek, a resident surgeon at UTMC.

Stanek said the scholarship will be funded through private donations, the medical community and from the countless people Chan impacted.

“Teaching students is something [Chan] always loved doing, so we thought creating a scholarship in his name will show him how much he’s touched other people and would inspire more people to be like him in the program,” Stanek said.

Chan received numerous awards for teaching, according to Mary Burda, a research and education coordinator at UT’s department of surgery.

“He has won numerous teaching awards — medical students voted him teacher of the year numerous times. He got the Gold Humanism Award and the Shining Star Award,” Burda said.

Stanek called Chan a hard-working, spirited person who never complained, and said he hopes the scholarship created will inspire more people to be like him.

“He left an indelible mark on people’s lives — not only with medical students, but he was also free with his knowledge with nursing students, physician assistant students and with anybody,” Schwann said.