William Martinez
William Martinez, a second-year medical student at UCSF, has been named an American Medical Association Foundation Minority Scholar.
The honor, awarded to only ten students around the country, includes a $10,000 scholarship.
Martinez is recognized for his excellence as a medical student and outstanding promise for a future career in medicine.
A resident of San Francisco, Martinez received a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, and a master's degree from UC Berkeley School of Public Health.
Martinez is the recipient of a UC Berkeley University Fellowship and UCSF Dean's Summer Research Fellowships. He received a Vanderryn Scholarship at UCSF and the Dartmouth College Academic Citation for distinguished scholarship. In 2004 he won the Journal of the American Medical Association John Conley Ethics Essay Contest and was a finalist for the UCSF Dean's Prize for Research.
The Minority Scholar Award recognizes scholastic achievement and promise for the future among students in groups defined as "historically underrepresented" in the medical profession. Less than seven percent of U.S. physicians fall within these groups, which include African American/Black, Native American, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native and Hispanic/Latino.
"We are pleased to recognize the outstanding achievements of William Martinez, and to provide him with substantial financial assistance," said AMA Foundation President Linda Ford, MD. "The AMA Foundation is committed to introducing more minorities into the medical profession in order to better reflect the needs of our diverse society. We must do all we can to ensure that the cost of medical education remains within reach of our most talented students."
The AMA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American Medical Association, has made a priority of helping medical students handle the rising cost of their education. On average, future physicians graduate approximately $109,000 in debt, and in many cases the debt load is much higher. Minority students in particular often feel the burden of the high expense of medical school, and they tend to carry a higher debt load after graduation.
The AMA Foundation has contributed more than $90 million in educational, research and public health grants since it was founded in 1950.
The Minority Scholars Awards are given in collaboration with the AMA Minority Affairs Consortium and in association with the Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative.
Source: American Medical Association Foundation
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