Jim Reed, M84

“You never forget the people who helped you along the way,” says Dr. Jim Reed, M84. That’s why he maintains close ties to his role model and one-time pathology lab supervisor Dr. Vivian Pinn, H93, former professor and assistant dean of student affairs. In her honor, he and his classmates established the Vivian Pinn Scholarship Fund to support underrepresented students, and he has named the fund a beneficiary of his life insurance policy.

Bolstering financial aid is important to Jim because it was instrumental in his success as a physician. Weeks into his first year, Jim discovered his family could not shoulder the burden of paying tuition for him and his sister. The financial aid office directed him to the National Health Services Corps, through which he could work in an underserved area to offset his tuition. Jim was assigned to work at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Oxford, Wisconsin, and while initially wary, he enjoyed having daily interactions with his patients and ended up working there as the medical director for 22 years.

Now retired, Jim serves on the Tufts Medical Alumni Association’s executive council. “I am pleased that my planned gift will help to strengthen the medical school’s efforts to continue to attract a diverse student body,” he says.