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Five Oregon Medical and PA Students Receive Scholarships at OMA Event

May 9, 2013

 

May 9, 2013 -- The Oregon Medical Association and its members hosted the second annual Party in the Pearl in Portland on April 19 for one purpose: to award $20,000 from the OMA Medical  Scholarship Fund to medical and PA students. One student from each of the Oregon’s four medical and physician assistant programs was awarded a $4,000 scholarship, along with a fifth ‘wild card’ scholarship winner. This year’s winners are:   Steve Barrett, a first year PA student at Pacific University School of PA Studies, earned his Bachelor of Science in exercise science from Central Michigan University in 2008 and worked as a Stress Technician in the Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston before moving to Oregon.    Shanley Deal, a third year medical student and Class President of the OHSU School of Medicine class of 2014, is a student representative on the OMA's Health Care Finance Committee. Originally from Tacoma, WA, she spent most of her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria. She took part in a child and family health service-learning experience in South Africa and plans to pursue a residency in Ob/Gyn.    Richard Holman, a second year medical student at COMP-Northwest, earned his Bachelor of Science in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, with a minor in history, from the University of Washington. “I look forward to my third year rotations in Portland and am excited to start practicing the  art and science of medicine.”   Karie Zweifel, a first year PA student in the OHSU Physician Assistant Program, is a trained phlebotomist and medical assistant in dermatology and family practice and holds Bachelor degrees in  biology and psychology from the University of South Dakota. While volunteering in public high schools in Reno, NV, spreading the good word about being a PA, she recognized the lack of incentives for underprivileged students to pursue medicine and went on to create the Native American/Alaskan Indian Health Care Scholarship. She was elected by her peers to represent OHSU at the national level in AAPA.   Dan Bruce, a first year medical student at COMP-Northwest, won the wild card scholarship. Born and raised in Medford, he has returned to Oregon to pursue a career in medicine after going to school and playing baseball in Texas and Arizona. “I am proud to be pursuing my dream in my home state and am excited for the future. Scholarships have been very hard to come by and the OMA's work to address this need in the state is wonderful.”  -more-The unconventional scholarships, awarded based on a random drawing at the party, are intended to call attention to and help reduce the burden of student debt.    “We have to do something to make medical training more affordable,” said Bud Pierce, MD, OMA’s outgoing president. “We are crippling our future physicians and PAs with unsustainable debt; we have to ensure that we’re not making it so expensive to get an education that only the wealthy can think of going  into medicine.”   The OMA also held a fundraising reception on April 20, featuring a wall of wine, a paddle raise and a keynote address from bestselling author Jeannette Walls. The organization’s first fundraiser for the newly-launched OMA Medical Scholarship Fund, the reception raised over $21,000. In total, the fund has  raised over $50,000 to date. Learn more at www.theOMA.org/scholarship.   The OMA is an organization of over 8,000 physicians, physician assistants, and medical and PA students organized to serve and support physicians in their efforts to improve the health of Oregonians. Additional information can be found at www.theOMA.org.   The Oregon Medical Education Foundation (OMEF) was formed by the OMA in 1961. It is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charitable organization dedicated to the advancement of medical science through education; it also serves as a repository for special and memorial gifts. ###

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