Page 5 - Morehouse School of Medicine Scholarship - IMPACT

Scholarship IMPACT on MSM medical students

child who vowed to
become a doctor after
witnessing his uncle’s
a
A th from pancreatic
de
cancer. A girl who received a stetho-
scope as a gift and wore it around
the house because she knew she was
meant to be a physician. A teenager
who, while visiting his cousin in an
intensive care unit, walked the halls
and saw too much — children with
burns, gunshot wounds, other trau-
ma — and knew he wanted to help.
A girl who lost her five-year-old
brother to meningitis after doctors
failed to make the right diagnosis.
What do all of these children
have in common? They all have threatens to dissuade them from male doctor until I was 23 years
grown up to become medical stu- taking lower-paying jobs in needy old,” he says. “That has been one of
dents at Morehouse School of Medi- communities. With scholarship my motivators throughout medical
cine in Atlanta. support, these doctors are freed to school.”
For more than 45 years, More- serve in primary care and under- MSM’s focus on health equity
house School of Medicine has privileged communities. has not gone unnoticed; the school
been known for educating the next As you know, the country is has twice bested all other medical
generation of physicians who will becoming more and more diverse, schools in a national study to be
provide culturally competent care to but the diversity of its healthcare named number-one for the insti-
underserved communities. Indeed, workforce still lags, with just five tution’s dedication to the social
about 66 percent of our graduates percent of physicians identifying as mission of medical education.
are doing just that. African American. This is due, in “MSM resonates with my per-
“Many schools have mission part, to the high cost of completing sonal convictions that health care is
statements that are more or less the a medical degree. The impact is a right, not a privilege,” says schol-
same. Morehouse School of Med- significant, given that studies show arship recipient Adonias Christo-
icine lives up to its mission,” says that Black patients tend to have bet- pher Lemma. “I did not enter this
scholarship recipient Alexandria ter outcomes when treated by Black profession for the money. I am in it
Williams. physicians. to help people.”
MSM’s MD students, who Young Black people need role Financial concerns can be
typically come from more difficult models, to show that it is possible significant for students at MSM.
socioeconomic circumstances than to pursue a career in medicine, says Though the average household in-
their peers, often leave medical MSM scholarship recipient Dari- come of students entering medical
school with crushing debt that us Stephens. “I didn’t have a Black continued on next page