Page 10 - ScottsMiracle-Gro

Scholarship Impact
Making Student Dreams A Reality
Kamron Robinson
St. Louis, MO
2021 MSM Graduate
What first interested you in
your program of medicine? From
June 2008 to October 2008, I spent
countless hours in the ICU of St.
Louis Children’s Hospital looking
over my seven-year-old cousin,
Karee, while she battled Idiopathic
Pulmonary Hemosiderosis.
Roaming those halls, I saw
everything that could happen to
a kid -- from gunshot wounds to
first degree burns on 90 percent
of their small frame. I grasped the
fact that near-death experiences
can happen to anyone. I watched
how the physicians used their tools
and knowledge to repair the body
to restore them to full health and
mobility.
Then something seemingly
small changed in how I viewed
the physician-patient relationship.
Before the physician would leave,
the patient would curve the corner
of their mouth outwards, upward,
exposing their teeth, expressing
their joy. Even when Karee passed
from complications of her illness, I
remembered the smile she always
had for her physicians.
That bond of affection and
trust, despite the sometimes-
insurmountable challenge of her
disease, sparked something inside of
me. Her courage and fearlessness and
their determination to heal her are
what inspired me to want to become
a physician.
Was the institution’s mission
important to you, when you were
choosing a medical school? This
institution’s mission was my main
reason of coming to Morehouse
The standardize test,
School of Medicine. Being to many who come from
from St. Louis, I was
exposed to a lot of life’s underserved communities,
challenges and disparities. can become a barrier to
As a child and teenager, I entering medical school
did not understand how the due to not being able to
afford the materials needed
same street in neighboring
zip codes had different to do well on the exam.
resources and how it It is important to
affected the community. I address this shortage
knew that in order to combat these because the health of the Black
social determinants of health as a community depends on it. According
professional, I would need to be at an to different studies, patients respond
institution that prides themselves on better to physicians who look like
making physicians that not only heal them. Better response leads to better
patients, but doctor the community compliance by patients and this leads
as well. to better health outcomes.
Please share how scholarship What do you hope to accomplish
support helps you — academically, in your career after graduation/
professionally, and personally? This residency? I hope to practice in an
scholarship helped me in many underserved community where I
ways. I became motivated and am also an active member of the
reinvigorated because I knew that community. I also hope to create
people believed in me, my dreams and change policies that help
and my goals so much that they were marginalized populations close
willing to give me such an amazing the health, wealth, and educational
gift. Professionally, this allows me gap. I believe that my education
to focus on my career without the at Morehouse School of Medicine
stress of having a huge debt burden. equipped me with the knowledge and
I will be able to serve the community skill to make my hopes into reality.
and offer free services to those who If you could say or do one thing
cannot afford it. to thank your scholarship donors
What is your take on the what would it be? Thank you so
nationwide shortage of minority much for this amazing gift. You have
doctors? I believe that there needs inspired generations of physicians
to be new ways to gauge interest
that will practice in communities that
in the medical profession while need doctors and advocates. Your gift
also revamping how we assess a will continue to be multiplied by the
candidate’s potential. many lives we will touch and help.
You have inspired generations of physicians that
“ will practice in communities that need doctors
and advocates. Your gift will continue to be
multiplied by the many lives we will touch and
help.