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appeared 14 January 1999
Three Med Students Become First Osher Scholars
Last spring, the Bernard Osher Foundation made an unprecedented gift to the UCSF School of
Medicine of a $1 million endowment to provide financial aid to medical students through
the Osher Scholars Program.
The School of Medicine has announced that the first three Osher Scholars have been chosen.
They are Paul Abeyta, Jody Stonehocker and John Young.
The aid is given to selected students who have demonstrated financial need and a
commitment to community service. Each selected student receives a grant of approximately
$5,500 per year for the second, third and fourth years of medical school. When the program
is fully enrolled, there will be nine scholars at any given time.
The Osher Scholars Program provides financial assistance to medical students who show high
promise for their future professional careers. The dual purpose of this financial aid is
to assist students with the current cost of attendance to reduce the amount of debt that
they would otherwise accrue by the time of graduation, and to place a visible emphasis on
the community services aspects of medical education.
 Abeyta, a graduate of UC Berkeley who grew up in Richmond, has
participated in the Bayview-Hunters Point, Mission Neighborhood, and Immigrant Pride Day
health fairs. He also volunteers at the student-organized health care clinics for the
homeless that are located in San Francisco's South of Market and Tenderloin districts.
The bulk of his activities are devoted to the Chicano/Latino Medical Student Association,
where he is involved with undergraduate outreach at UC Davis and with the UC Berkeley
Biology Scholars Program.
As one of the outreach representatives of the School of Medicine's Admissions Committee,
Abeyta works with Latino medical school applicants to ease their fears about the
interviewing process and to introduce them to life at UCSF. He also helps organize the
annual Chicanos in Health Education high school recruitment day.
"Growing up in and around an underserved community greatly influenced my decision to
enter medicine, and continues to shape my choice of extracurricular activities and career
goals," Abeyta said. "My experiences living and working within this community
(Richmond) lead me to believe that I can have a significant impact by serving as a
positive role model and a physician who provides health care that is sensitive to the
needs of the people."
 Stonehocker is a second year medical student and a
graduate of the University of San Francisco. She brought years of community service with
her to UCSF, including medical missionary work in the Dominican Republic and Mexico and
working with migrant farm workers and their families in Yolo County and the San Joaquin
Valley.
At UCSF, she has participated as a student volunteer and preceptor coordinator at the
student-run clinics for homeless individuals; served as a volunteer food runner;
participated in Mission District health fairs; and taught health-related topics to
students at Horace Mann Middle School as a participant in the Science and Health Education
Partnership Med Teach program.
Also active in her church, Stonehocker has been a student organizer and leader of the
campus Christian fellowship. She spent the summer between her first and second year of
medical school working with a family physician in Cere, California whose practice
consisted of very poor Medi-Cal patients and migrant farm workers. She states that she
would like to practice "full-range family medicine either in a very rural location
serving migrant farm workers, an inner city serving the Latino immigrant population or in
Latin America."
"I am strongly considering training as a family practitioner because it would enable
me to treat a wide spectrum of medical problems in areas where other doctors may not be
readily available as a resource," Stonehocker said.
 Young received a bachelor of arts degree in social studies from
Harvard, then completed a master's degree in public policy at UC Berkeley. In between
college and graduate school, he worked in the office of Assemblyman Phil Isenberg as the
chief staff person for Assembly Bill 99 (Prop. 99), which created the $1.5 billion
"tobacco tax" appropriation. He also served as chief of staff for Assemblywoman
Barbara Friedman and wrote the Breast Cancer Act of 1993.
Young's interest in public health/public policy has continued through his work as a
consultant to UCSF's Center for the Health Professions and his research, and his writing
of articles on health care reform, physician supply and funding for medical education.
Bringing his rich background in public policy and legislative action to medical school,
Young organized a successful, campuswide policy forum on managed care in January 1998,
where he developed the program, recruited speakers and moderated a debate. His other
passion has been his work as a co-developer of a six-unit, $1.2 million, co-housing
project in a mixed income neighborhood of Oakland where he and his wife live. He has also
established a lay counseling ministry at Rockridge United Methodist Church, which is
involved in neighborhood outreach activities.
"Ten years from now, I hope to combine a primary care practice in a mixed income
neighborhood with an involvement in health policy and politics," Young said. "My
five-plus years of experience in the state legislature and my substantial role in the
co-housing project have given me a deep passion for justice and politics and considerable
real life experience at achieving important health policy reforms via the political
process. I hope to draw on both of these experiences in becoming a physician actively
engaged in policy change."
Links:
Education the Priority for
School of Medicine
UCSF School
of Medicine |
