TBHC’s Dr. Keith Cummings Donates More than $4 Million in STEM Literature to Guyana Schools

For years, The Brooklyn Hospital Center (TBHC) staff have done impactful charity work for their diverse communities here and abroad. TBHC is proud of all of them and to this year, we share the story of Keith Cummings, MD, and his medical contributions to his home country, Guyana.

On October 30, Dr. Cummings, an associate professor and attending family medicine physician at TBHC, donated more than $4 million in a collection of medical books and journals to the University of Guyana’s School of Medicine’s Library (UG). As a 2003 alumnus himself, Dr. Cummings understands the importance of giving back and providing access to knowledge to further improve the quality of education, research and training for new physicians in Guyana.

Dr. Emanuel Cummings, Dean of Faculty of Health Sciences, accepted the donation, and expressed gratitude to both Dr. Keith Cummings and his collaborators, TBHC’s Drs. Sherly Abraham, Stephen Carryl, Dhanan Etwaru, Phillip McPherson; and along with Ali Hassoun, Dwain Woode, and Leon Lewis, for their continued generosity and commitment to University of Guyana.

Not only has Dr. Cummings given back to his former university, he’s supported his primary and secondary schools, as well. He recently donated $400,000 with contributions from TBHC staff and the Guyanese Brooklyn community to boost Eversham Primary School’s developing Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Lab. The Ministry of Education of Guyana first helped establish the lab. “The aim is to aid children within the community to become computer literate and expand their knowledge, so they can be competent and fit to face the rapid changes in the world,” said Dr. Cummings.

Dr. Cummings travels to his home country often, providing an array of medical education workshops in various towns among underserved communities and within churches in Berbice, his hometown in eastern Guyana. He completed his teaching fellowship in neuroscience at St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada and completed his residency in family medicine at TBHC. He then completed a hospital medicine fellowship at the University of Alabama.