Help out medical endowment scholarship
One of my jobs as president of the Rotary Club of Toowoomba is to engage a speaker for each Monday night’s meeting. Last year we welcomed two speakers from the University of Queensland’s Faculty of Medicine, namely Advancement Director Tracey Tomlin and Senior Advancement Manager Joanne Cherriman, who told us about the university’s “Medical Endowment Scholarship.”
Scholarships are awarded to applicants, in full-time study of the Doctor of Medicine, who can demonstrate financial need, deliver a personal statement demonstrating how the scholarship will assist completion of their study, and other matters the selection committee considers relevant to the applicant’s future success.
The Darling Downs is considered one of the most generous regions in Australia and, not surprisingly, Tracey and Jo are keen to engage with local businesses and philanthropists to support the scholarship program.
They told me about an outstanding recipient, “Jess,” who said her entry into medicine was not so traditional, as she started her adventure into tertiary education as a “very lost seventeen-year-old,” and was the first person in her immediate family to go to university.
She toyed with law, fell in love with biomedical research, and concluded medicine would be her career.
Jess lived in several locations throughout the Darling Downs and Central Queensland and said she spent most of her childhood living below the poverty line in a single parent family.
She added, “Poverty is an insidious and pervasive force that strips individuals and communities of their dignity, potential and basic human needs, perpetuating a cycle of disadvantage and inequality.
“Further, it makes keeping yourself safe from adversities like domestic violence and mental health extremely difficult.”
Jess is now studying her PhD, between year two and three of the Medical Doctor program, and reflects, “My upbringing made it clear to me that education is power and having access to education could help me not only transcend poverty, but also support my family in living a peaceful life.”
Pleasingly for regions such as ours, Jess’s love of the “bush” has made her determined to move out to a regional practice, or hospital, when she graduates – let’s hope she chooses the Darling Downs.
She concluded, “I am deeply grateful for the incredible opportunity the Medical Endowment Scholarship has provided me.”
We expect to see Tracey and Jo in the Toowoomba region regularly over coming months, as next on their agenda is funding for a “3D total body skin cancer imaging machine,+9” for Toowoomba and the region, on the journey to “a world without Melanoma”.
If you’d like to donate to the medical endowment fund go to https://alumni.uq.edu.au/uqmedicine-scholarship-endowmentfund.
And if you’d like to catch up with Tracey and Jo drop me a line via my email at johnson.gj@bigpond.com