Geraldine Poppa Schechter

The Brooklyn-raised Poppa dreamt of becoming a doctor and studied her way through top institutions, landing leading physician roles in New York and Washington, D.C.

The success Geraldine Poppa Schechter has achieved—graduating from medical school, training as an internist and hematologist, and joining the medical faculty at George Washington University—is, in large part, due to her parents’ courage. “When my father came as an adventurous young man to see America, somehow at Ellis Island his surname changed from Popa to Poppa,” say Dr. Schechter. “He returned home in 1935 to marry my mother, brought her to the United States for a short stay, and planned to return home, which of course did not happen.”