A privately funded scholarship will enable Shannon Fortin to attend medical school for free. The newest Apogee Scholar will go to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University without paying for tuition, fees or books during the next four years of her medical education.
"I am completely ecstatic," says Fortin, 23, of Phoenix, who returned from a Fulbright study program in Belgium to pursue a dual degree in medicine and an academic doctorate.
Michael Gregory, MD, chairman of Apogee Physicians in Phoenix, established the scholarship last year to encourage bright, talented students to study and practice medicine in Arizona.
The education system in the United States forces “our brightest students to incur a mountain of debt to devote a lifetime of service to others,” said Dr. Gregory, whose hospitalist group has 340 doctors in 26 states, including 80 in Arizona.
Dr. Gregory, who fulfilled his residency in general surgery in Maricopa County, hopes to support one new student a year. By meeting this goal, four Apogee Scholars will be able to attend the college at once. Each four-year scholarship provides $80,000 to students.
"It's reinvesting in the future," Dr. Gregory says.
Last year’s U.S. medical-school graduates who carried debts owed nearly $140,000 on average, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Sarah Whitley, the first Apogee Scholar and a Flinn Scholar alumna, is starting her second year. “I feel relieved, lucky and fortunate not to have such a huge financial burden,” she says.
Without the scholarship, the students would have had to secure loans. In many cases, students choose less expensive education programs and career paths, further affecting Arizona's acute physician shortage.
As one of the fastest growing states, Arizona is projected to need more than double its current number of physicians – from about 15,000 today to more than 40,000 by the year 2020 – to keep up with population growth. Arizona currently ranks in the bottom five states for the number of physicians per 100,000 residents.
"We are committed to finding exceptionally talented students to help the state address this critical shortage,” Stuart Flynn, MD, interim dean of the College of Medicine-Phoenix. “Further, we are thrilled & very proud that Apogee Physicians has joined us in our mission by supporting a well-deserved student with a scholarship that will encourage the best and brightest to enter the medical field and attend medical school and do his or her residency training in Arizona, and subsequently stay in the state to practice.”
Using student profiles that don’t identify the candidates, the college dean and associate dean for academic affairs choose the scholarship recipient from among top-tier students accepted into the incoming class, assessing several qualities of each student to determine the recipient.
The College of Medicine-Phoenix has admitted its second first-year class of students. A group of 24 students made up the first class.
The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with ASU is the only MD degree-granting college in the metro Phoenix area. The college is part of the University of Arizona College of Medicine which began in 1967 with a class of 32 students on its Tucson campus. The college today encompasses full, four-year medical-education programs in Tucson and in Phoenix.