HUNTINGTON – Judge Dan O’Hanlon thinks of the endowed scholarship program he’s started at Marshall University in his wife’s name as the perfect ode to her.
“Helping people is what she’s all about through and through,” O’Hanlon told The West Virginia Record of his bride of the last 42 years, who also is a professor and clerkship director in the department of family and community health at Marshall's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.
Dr. Kathleen M. O’Hanlon is also a magna cum laude graduate of the Class of 1982 of the university. She also graduated from the School of Medicine and in 1989 completed her residency at the university as chief resident.
“On Dec. 19, she celebrated her 60th birthday and I had run out of birthday and Christmas gift ideas,” O’Hanlon said of his impetus for starting the scholarship program with a $25,000 donation in the here and now. "I had been thinking of doing this. She sees it as a great honor and loves that she will actually get to meet and teach some of the students this scholarship will be helping.”
O’Hanlon, a former circuit judge in Cabell County, said funds for the Kathleen M. O’Hanlon, M.D. Scholarship will be made available immediately to an entering first-year student, with preference given to residents of Huntington and/or Cabell County. He added after news of the scholarship became publicly known, some of his wife’s patients and friends thought it was such a good idea they donated more money.
Kathleen O’Hanlon grew up in Tucson, Arizona watching and admiring how her father tirelessly worked to treat all his patients, according to a press release on the scholarship from Marshall University. Her inspiration for becoming a physician traces back to those days.
“She’s thrilled and honored to have reached this point,” O’Hanlon said of his wife. “After they told me they could get it all done before Christmas, I knew this would be a great thing to do.”