Former MCG professor continues to make big impact for health care students

Kamla Shah, MD, may have been small in stature, but she was big on generosity, determination and personality.

Shah was born in Victoria, Seychelles Islands, in the Indian Ocean. She was one of 10 children born into a business-class family within a very traditional culture. The expectation was that Shah would go to a local college, get married and live nearby to support her parents and family – like her siblings and everyone else her age – had done for generations. Shah, however, had more ambitious plans.

“Feisty as she was, she told her mother that she had such good grades that she could become a doctor,” said M. Vinayak Kamath, MD, a former colleague and longtime family friend. “At that time, there was no medical school in Seychelles, and the nearest country was India. For a young lady just out of high school with very uncommon credentials to travel to another country, go to college and later get into medical school, there was a lot of skepticism.”

But Shah proved the naysayers wrong. Although she did have a job and stayed in Victoria for a while, one of her older brothers convinced their mother that Shah should leave the island to attend college in India. Her brother sent her to Wilson College in Mumbai (then Bombay) to complete undergraduate studies, but Shah still had her sights set on becoming a doctor. Once she graduated from Wilson, she applied to medical school.

She interviewed at King Edward Memorial Hospital and Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College, one of India’s foremost institutions in Mumbai. She was accepted in the first round of admissions and spent five years there. After graduation, she decided to specialize in medical radiotherapy. In the ’70s and ’80s, radiotherapy was a very competitive field, with only about 20 slots available across India. When Shah couldn’t get into a training program there, she packed her belongings and flew to London.

Her tenacity and hard work got her into one of the most prominent programs there, and she earned her diploma in medical radiotherapy from the Royal College of Physicians of London and the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

From there, she went to Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and worked as a radiation oncologist at Queens University. In 1977, after much persuasion from the University of Texas, she accepted a teaching position and served as the radiology residency training program director at the university’s Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. The offer was too good to turn down, and the move brought her closer to her family, who had moved to Houston.

Shah’s reputation in radiation oncology soon caught the attention of William Moretz, MD, who served as the Medical College of Georgia’s chair of surgery from 1955-72 and university president from 1972-83. The story Kamath heard is that Moretz flew to Galveston personally to recruit Shah to work in Augusta. Whatever happened, Shah decided MCG was a good fit for her and was on the move again in 1982.

According to Kamath, Shah came in big with an assertion that radiation treatments could be curative rather than just palliative, and that breast cancer could be treated and even cured with a lumpectomy followed by radiation. He said that rankled a few surgeons then, but she never backed down. Kamath also spoke highly of Shah’s bedside manner and said the patients loved her.

Her compassion and empathy went beyond treating her patients and could be seen in her generosity and attitude toward giving.

“She was very charitable,” Shah’s sister, Bhagvanti Das, MD, recalled fondly. “Not only within the foundation she set up for the university, but she also helped a lot of members of the family in India who were just starting, and she helped some of the young ones to come up – that was just her way. And if somebody needed help, she never hesitated to give.”

If Shah had pursued the life her family prescribed, she may have never left home. Instead, she followed her dreams beyond the Indian Ocean and not only gave back to her family from afar but also invested in giving scholarships to students at Augusta University and other charities related to medical care.

“She graduated with very little debt and saw that students in most colleges here have a lot of debt. So, she put away 10% of her salary for decades and started The Shah Foundation,” said David Cantrell, director of Philanthropy at Augusta University. “She would give out $1,000 scholarships to nine to 10 students yearly.”

Shah established her foundation in 1992 while working at MCG, where she served as the chief medical and administrative director of the Georgia Radiation Therapy Center and director of the Radiation Oncology Residency Program until her retirement in 1998. She personally managed The Shah Foundation, awarding scholarships to students at MCG, the College of Allied Health Sciences and the College of Nursing because she enjoyed selecting and interacting with each recipient.

As a longtime MCG faculty member who had developed strong roots in the Augusta community, it was fitting for Shah to donate her foundation funds to AU.

Today, the Dr. Kamla Shah Foundation Scholarship provides scholarships to medical, nursing and allied health students in much the same way that Shah administered these gifts.

Shah passed away on Sept. 20, 2023, but her passion for helping students graduate with less debt led her to leave a portion of her estate to endow the scholarship fund fully. Now, her legacy will continue to benefit students in perpetuity.

If you would like to leave a legacy of your own or contribute to the Dr. Kamla Shah Foundation Scholarship Endowment, please email Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement or call 706-721-4001.