It turns out that a wealthy alum of the University of Rochester Medical School has donated $2 million dollars into a matching scholarship fund in the hopes of someday making medical school there free for all students says a Rochester NY paper, the Democrat and Chronicle.
This presents a revolutionary idea–with all the moderately to obscenely wealthy medical school alumni around the country and the world that graduate from medical schools, donations from alumni could make undergraduate medical education in the United States free. Entirely.
Why doesn’t this happen? Why don’t doctors pay it forward? We know many students receive scholarships and in fact many of these students as alums give money back to their schools, but not nearly enough do so to make medical school free. Sadly, what most doctor’s are too focused on, I’d wager, is the race to get those student loans paid off–and once they have–those thoughts of med school bills fade away.
Instead, what if doctors thought more like Dr. Brent, the Rochester alum who instead of forgetting about his school once his bills were paid, decided to give back. And to give so much that it might be possible some day to make medical school free.
If this were the ethic among medical school alumni, we could change the way doctors think not only about giving to medical schools but also giving of their time to other causes such as free clinics in the US and abroad and other philanthropy.
Maybe, just maybe, free med school could change medicine.
Summer Johnson, PhD