Friends of a Chicago doctor who was fatally shot by her ex-fiancé are creating a scholarship in her honor.
On November, 28, 2018, the former fiancé of Dr. Tamara O' Neal killed her during her shift at Chicago's Mercy Hospital. Juan Lopez and O'Neal got into a heated argument, which ended with Lopez pulling out a gun and fatally shooting the 38-year-old. He was later found dead after fatally wounding a police officer and killing a nurse.
Per the Chicago Sun-Times, O’Neal graduated from UIC College of Medicine graduate in 2014 and served as an emergency medicine resident graduate in 2017. Former classmates joined together to raise $68,000 toward the Tamara O’Neal MD Scholarship Fund, which will fund the education of a first-year medical student at the University of Illinois’ Urban Health Program.
“Tamara made sure that our group of friends continued to get together even after we all graduated and were all over the country doing our residencies,” Chisalu Nchekwube family medicine resident at Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn and close friend to O’Neal said in a statement. “Our group became like a family and Tamara was the matriarch, the glue that held us together.”
A second scholarship will be offered to help a fourth-year medical student complete their residency in emergency medicine if enough money is raised. Her father, Tom O’Neal, told the publication the goal is to raise enough money to create an ongoing scholarship.
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“Tamara was always a person who lived to help people, and to be able to pass that on in the form of this scholarship fund to help someone else, then Tamara still lives,” he shared.
According to the UIC's website, O’Neal participated in the Urban Health Program’s post-baccalaureate and summer pre-matriculation programs. The program offers services to students who are underrepresented in the medical field with a mission to advance health equity.
The group created a giving page where supporters can help raise funds towards the scholarship.
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