John Braico, MD ’74 and Kathleen Keely Braico, MD ’74

We met at SUNY Binghamton as undergraduates majoring in Biology and pre-med. We became engaged there, and applied to get into the same medical school. However, we graduated from Binghamton in 1970, the year of anti-war riots and closing of many campuses due to "unrest". John never got a chance to interview at Buffalo due to the campus closures, and he started medical school at Upstate Medical School in Syracuse, while Kathy started in Buffalo.

We planned to marry at the end of our freshman year in medical school. Kathy applied to transfer to Syracuse, but that school would not even consider accepting her. John applied to Buffalo, and was accepted into the second year class. We later learned that Buffalo also wasn't interested in accepting him initially, but that a female member of the admissions committee argued for his acceptance as we were getting married. We were the only married couple who were both students in the same class. We finished medical school in Buffalo and then both did our residency in pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Buffalo before opening our practice in Glens Falls NY in 1978.

We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last June. Without the generosity of the admissions staff at Buffalo Medical School, and the cooperation of the staff at Buffalo Children's Hospital to allow a married couple to learn and practice their specialty, we never could have achieved what we have... together.